Infusing Diversity into an Entry Level Psychology Course

Life Span Development is a required course for majors in psychology and a general education elective for students at large at our university. This article follows the journey of a redesign project that focused on infusing diversity into both small and large lecture classes, with emphases on both course content and pedagogy.

Effects of the In vivo program on salivary cortisol and internalized symptoms of adolescents: a multiple case pilot study

Internalized disorders such as anxiety and depression are among the most common psychological problems in adolescents. An important risk factor in the development of these disorders is stress, which can increase the risk of developing emotional difficulties. This study sought to evaluate the effects of the In vivo program, which is aimed at developing stress coping skills. A multi-case research design was used with three girls and three boys aged 13 to 17. Internalized symptoms and program adherence were measured using questionnaires; stress was measured using a biomarker, salivary cortisol. The results demonstrate that boys showed a clinically significant improvement in internalized symptoms, whereas no improvement was observed in girls.

ASL Stories with Handshape Rhyme: An Exploratory Intervention to Support English Vocabulary with Signing Deaf Readers Abstract An exploratory reading intervention using ASL stories, some with no visual handshape rhymes and others with handshape rhymes, t

An exploratory reading intervention using ASL stories, some with no visual handshape rhymes and others with handshape rhymes, to foster English print vocabulary was evaluated. Four signing deaf students, who were prelingually and profoundly deaf, between the ages of seven and eight years of age and reading at the first-grade level or below were engaged in the intervention. During group story time sessions, stories in American Sign Language (ASL) were presented on PowerPoint slides that included stories translated into both ASL and English, and short lessons using bilingual strategies. Using a pretest-posttest design, the print words were presented within ASL stories across three conditions; 1) with no ASL handshape rhyme, 2) with ASL handshape rhyme, and 3) with English word families (e.g., cat, sat, bat) that rhyme. Students’ vocabulary scores were significantly higher on the ASL stories with handshape rhymes, marginally significant in the non-rhyming ASL stories, and non-significant in the ones with rhyming English word families. This findings point to the importance of rhyme for young deaf children attending ASL/English bilingual programs and suggest that creating ASL stories with rhyme can help to bootstrap literacy. Future directions for research are recommended.

A study of applicants’ preference on choosing a postgraduate programme using Discrete Choice Model

Is having a degree of a postgraduate programme necessary and indispensable? Over the recent decades, it is noticeable to find that experienced professionals with a postgraduate degree would move up the corporate ladder relatively faster than those who do not. Because of that, professionals seeking for master degree or above are growing. In parallel, many universities in Hong Kong are offering various postgraduate programmes to attract potential applicants resulting in severe competition among universities themselves. Leveraging on the Discrete Choice Model (DCM) and sensitivity analysis, this study examined how the six essential attributes would make an impact on the ranking of a postgraduate programme. To validate the model, three hundred and thirty-nice responses were collected through a mass survey. Our findings highlighted that reputation of the university, practicality of the programme, focuses on future economies and cost of the programme were more important factors than location of the university and internationalization of students’ profile for potential applicants to choose a postgraduate programme in Hong Kong. This study intended to offer practical insights and direction for universities when designing a better and more attractive postgraduate programmes.

The contribution of need fulfilment to quality of life: A reflection on the relation between the needs-based model of quality of life and Max Neef’s theory of Human Scale Development

The Needs-based model of quality of life has been employed in the development of a wide range of disease-specific quality of life measures over the last 20 years. The model argues that disease prevents need fulfilment and that effective interventions enable individuals to satisfy more of their fundamental human needs. Rather than adopting an existing theoretical framework, the needs-based model developed through grounded theory techniques. Several theories of needs have been advanced during the last 70 years, many of which are well known. This article relates the needs-based model of quality of life to the major published theories of human needs. Several of the theories focus on the development of societies rather than individuals – dependent on the disciplines and interests of the authors; who include sociologists, economists and psychologists. Most theorists also believe that there is a hierarchy of needs. The needs theories suggest that there are varying numbers of fundamental needs, but these tend to overlap across the theories. Statistical analyses of data collected with the needs-based quality of life measures support the view that there is a single, fundamental need.

How differing conceptions of integrity and self-integration influence relationships: Implications for management, personal and professional development

As human beings we need to relate to others; the exercise of our professional roles demands it. Relationships, however, bring about challenges to the self that require us to act with integrity. Different approaches to integrity configure different ways of cognitively and intuitively feeling and acting in our relationships. Moreover, different ways of understanding human development are related to different ways of understanding integrity in the self. While not an exhaustive account, we sketch out three models of human development that capture much of this diversity, the so-called autonomous self (AS), processual self (PS) and inter-processual self (IPS). Each has a particular way of defining integrity in the self and understanding action. The AS and PS models understand integrity as internal coherence thanks primarily to rational exercise, with priority given to the content of action, while relations are seen as resources. AS and PS focus on cognition through rational or emotional and external mastery of our relationships and our relationship to our own integrity (self-integrity is also handled as a cognitive exercise mirroring how external relations are understood). The IPS understands integrity as the dynamic to growth and cognition itself as a relational act that, when it arises from within, affects all dimensions of the person and hence how to ethically relate to others and ourselves. Different kinds of integrity are also related to practical wisdom. Based on this, we explore consequences of these different ways of understanding self-integration and relationships for approaching management and leadership roles to open up reflection in the field of management on leadership, relational integrity and personal development.

Latent class cluster analysis

This paper describes the technique of exploratory latent class cluster analysis. The classical analysis is a model-based statistical approach for identifying unobserved subgroups from observed categorical data and for classifying cases into the identified subgroups based on membership probabilities estimated directly from the statistical model. In the first part on mathematical modeling of the paper, we introduce the data and the sampling distribution for the data as required in the analysis of latent classes, the fundamental model assumptions are reviewed, and the general unrestricted latent class model is presented. Classification of cases into the clusters using modal assignment is discussed. In the second part on inferential statistics of the paper, we briefly review the classical maximum likelihood methodology related to parameter estimation and model testing, and the information criteria AIC and SIC for model selection. In the third part on case study of the paper, the General Social Survey data are analyzed using the software Latent GOLD®. We present the Latent GOLD® profile plot and tri plot options for the graphical representation of the results. The Latent GOLD® classification output illustrating the assignment of respondents to the latent survey respondent types is also shown.