Appraising the performance of high school teachers based on fuzzy number arithmetic operations

This paper presents a new method for appraising the performance of high school teachers based on fuzzy number arithmetic operations. It uses fuzzy numbers to represent fuzzy grades. The fuzzy weights of criteria are automatically generated from the opinions of evaluators. The simplified fuzzy number arithmetic operations are used for calculating the average of fuzzy numbers. It can appraise the performance of high school teachers in a more flexible and more intelligent manner.     

Does mentioning “some people” and “other people” in a survey question increase the accuracy of adolescents' self-reports?

A great deal of developmental research has relied on self-reports solicited using the “some/other” question format (“Some students think that… but other students think that…”). This article reports tests of the assumptions underlying its use: that it conveys to adolescents that socially undesirable attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors are not uncommon and legitimizes reporting them, yielding more valid self-reports than would be obtained by “direct” questions, which do not mention what other people think or do. A meta-analysis of 11 experiments embedded in four surveys of diverse samples of adolescents did not support the assumption that the some/other form increases validity. Although the some/other form led adolescents to think that undesirable attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors were more common and resulted in more reports of those attitudes and behaviors, answers to some/other questions were lower in criterion validity than were answers to direct questions. Because some/other questions take longer to ask and answer and require greater cognitive effort from participants (because they involve more words), and because they decrease measurement accuracy, the some/other question format seems best avoided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Financial management of housing contracts

A long history of financial failure of parties involved in housing contracts, particularly in, but not confined to, Australia during 1974–1975, produced a need for research to be carried out into the management of such contracts. A research programme was commenced in 1975, and its aims, methods and assumptions are discussed. The results of the research are presented in tabular form, some observations are made, and conclusions are drawn.     

Reliability and validity of self-reported burnout in college students: A cross randomized comparison of paper-and-pencil vs. online administration

Internet data collection is becoming increasingly popular in all research fields dealing with human perceptions, behaviors and opinions. Advantages of internet data collection, when compared to the traditional paper-and-pencil format, include reduced costs, automatic database creation, and the absence of researcher-related bias effects, such as availability and complete anonymity. However, the validity and reliability of internet gathered data must be established, in comparison to the usual paper-and-pencil accepted formats, before an inferential analysis can be done. In this study, we compared questionnaire data gathered from the internet with that from the traditional paper-and-pencil in a sample of college students. The questionnaires used were the Maslach Burnout Inventory - Student Survey (MBI-SS), the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OBI-SS) and the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI-SS). Data was gathered through a within-subject cross randomized and counterbalanced design, on both internet and paper-and-pencil formats. The results showed no interference in the application order, and a good reliability for both formats. However, concordance between answers was generally higher in the paper-and-pencil format than on the internet. The factorial structure was invariant in the three burnout inventories. Data gathered in this study supports the Internet as a convenient, user-friendly, comfortable and secure data gathering method which does not affect the accepted factorial structures existent in the paper format of the three burnout inventories used.     

Reliability and Technical Meaning of Personality Questionnaire Scales.

Comments on the article Comments on The Brain Watchers, written by K.S. Nickerson, that remarks on the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (see record 2005-11489-001.) The author of this comment mentions several objections to the article written by Nickerson. First, since Nickeron's main theme is the recent attacks by laymen on psychological testing--such as those of Gross (1962), Hoffman (1962), and the popular weekly Life--his mentioning the 16 PF would naturally suggest to a reader that it was one of the tests under attack. The 16 PF, as far as anyone can ascertain, was not among the several tests pilloried by these gentlemen and Life. More seriously, when Nickeson flings the term "impossible" at a 16 PF item, he is simply pontificating, not responsibly bringing evidence as would be expected in a scientific journal. When, by the equally unconsidered term "esoteric," Nickerson objects to technical terms in psychology for precise research concepts, he is, again, scarcely on the side of progress. The author of this comment concludes a psychologist may actually be showing more psychometric wisdom in using, in many testing situations, the 16 PF Form C alone, contrary to Nickerson's dismissal of a six-item scale. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

电价机制下商业用户用电响应行为分析

根据实际调查问卷,将电力商业用户按照用电特性分为5类,分析了各类商业用户在不同电价水平下,用电高峰段、用电平段、用电低谷段3个时段的负荷响应程度,利用概率分布函数预测了各类用户的负荷调整可能值,并应用马尔科夫链建立了不同时段负荷响应预测模型,对"十二五"期间商业用户的负荷调整响应度进行了模拟,并通过算例分析验证了其实际意义,挖掘了各类商业用户在不同时段的负荷调整潜力,为区域商业用户智能配电及管理提供了决策支持依据。     

Converging coolness and investigating its relation to user experience

Recently a number of studies appeared that operationalised coolness and explored its relation to digital products. Literature suggests that perceived coolness is another factor of user experience, and this adds to an existing explosion of dimensions related to aesthetics, hedonic quality, pragmatic quality, attractiveness, etc. A critical challenge highlighted in prior research is to study the relationships among those factors and so far, no studies have empirically examined the relationship between coolness and other established user experience factors. In this paper, we address this challenge by presenting two studies one that focuses on factors from two cool questionnaires, and one that compares them against existing User eXperience (UX) factors. Our findings show that factors from the two cool questionnaires converge and they also converge to existing, established UX factors. Thus, 11 distinct cool and UX factors converge into 5 for the case of mobile devices. Our findings are important for researchers, as we demonstrate through a validated model that coolness is part of UX research, as well as for practitioners, by developing a questionnaire that can reliably measure both perceived inner and outer coolness as well as the overall coolness judgement based on 5 factors and 21 items.     

四川高职院校思想政治理论课现状调查

本文对高职院校学生思想政治理论课总体认识、行为态度以及对思想政治理论课课程目标、教学内容、教学状况、任课教师、考核方式等方面的认识和评价进行了问卷调查,运用SPSS软件对调查结果统计分析以期为高职院校思想政治理论课程改革提供借鉴。     

A simplified CREAM prospective quantification process and its application

Cognitive reliability and error analysis method (CREAM), with a sound cognitive model and framework with an emphasis of the whole characteristics of context, is a representative method of the so-called second generation human reliability analysis (HRA) methods and can be used in both retrospective and prospective analysis. For prospective analysis in the context of PSA/HRA, the need of CREAM to provide the results in quantitative terms is seemingly unavoidable. One remaining problem of CREAM as HRA is how to provide an easily practicable process to get the numeric results. This paper provides a simplified CREAM prospective quantification process including the basic method and extended method and their applications in the SGTR event of Qinshan 1 NPP. A comparison is made between the CREAM and THERP in the quantification and a data collection system is proposed to provide a more validated data source for future application of CREAM method.     

Psychologist and Society.

Comments on the original article by F. B. Tyler and J. C. Speisman (see record 1968-00071-001), which discussed the expanding and increasingly complex role of the psychologist. Here, the current author notes the construction of a short questionnaire, designed for precollege students, to investigate the way the psychologist's role is seen. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)