The authors tested the hypothesis that a match between the gender relevance of a stressor and one's sex or gender role identification would elicit higher cardiovascular responses. Healthy female and male undergraduates (n = 108) were exposed to two stressors: the Cold Pressor Test (CPT) and the n-back task. Stressor relevance was manipulated to be…

The authors propose a concise formula to evaluate the standard error of the estimated latent variable score when the true values of the structural parameters are not known and must be estimated. The formula can be applied to factor scores in factor analysis or ability parameters in item response theory, without bootstrap or Markov chain Monte…

The authors respond to the article by H. F. Coelho, P. H. Canter, and E. Ernst (2007), which reviewed the current status of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT). First, they clarify the randomization procedures in the 2 main MBCT trials. Second, they report posttreatment and follow-up data to show that trial participants allocated to…

In his 1979 "Human Development" article reprinted in this anniversary issue, James Wertsch presented an approach to genetic analysis of the shifting regulation of problem-solving behavior in early childhood. In my reflections on Wertsch's seminal contribution, I discuss ways that subsequent inquiry built upon ideas he elaborated in the…

Reports an error in "Finding Useful Questions: On Bayesian Diagnosticity, Probability, Impact, and Information Gain" by Jonathan D. Nelson (Psychological Review, 2005[Oct], Vol 112[4], 979-999). In Table 13, the data should indicate that 7% of females had short hair and 93% of females had long hair. The calculations and discussion in the article…

This article presents new methods for modeling the strength of association between multiple behaviors in a behavioral sequence, particularly those involving substantively important interaction patterns. Modeling and identifying such interaction patterns becomes more complex when behaviors are assigned to more than two categories, as is the case…

The theory of signal detection is convenient for measuring mnemonic ability in recognition memory paradigms. In these paradigms, randomly selected participants are asked to study randomly selected items. In practice, researchers aggregate data across items or participants or both. The signal detection model is nonlinear; consequently, analysis…

In this study, the authors assess several strategies created on the basis of the Mantel-Haenszel (MH) procedure for conducting differential item functioning (DIF) analysis with small samples. One of the analytical strategies is a loss function (LF) that uses empirical Bayes Mantel-Haenszel estimators, whereas the other strategies use the classical…

People's reactions to coincidences are often cited as an illustration of the irrationality of human reasoning about chance. We argue that coincidences may be better understood in terms of rational statistical inference, based on their functional role in processes of causal discovery and theory revision. We present a formal definition of…

In October/November 2009, the Forum on Education Abroad conducted its third State of the Field Survey. This survey provides an annual or biannual assessment of key education abroad issues and topics of interest to Forum members and the field of education abroad at large. Previous State of the Field surveys were conducted in 2006 and 2008. The 2009…

The impending retirements of many community college leaders creates a need to better understand who the chief academic officers (CAOs) are and the paths they followed to become CAOs. Nonetheless, researchers have paid relatively little attention to this important leadership position. To address this gap in the literature, the authors undertook a…

Research on the lack of civic and political engagement on the part of today's youth has relied on traditional, often quantitative, measures of political knowledge that may miss important elements of the process. Using an ethnographic approach with a group of inner-city high school students, our study reveals a richer construction of students'…

Results from classical power analysis (Brewer, 1972) suggest that a researcher should not set a=p (when p is less than a) in a posteriori fashion when a study yields statistically significant results because of a resulting decrease in power. The purpose of the present report is to use Bayesian theory in examining the validity of this…

A class of estimators which are asymptotically unbiased and mean square consistent are exhibited. Theorems giving necessary and sufficient conditions for uniform asymptotic unbiasedness and for mean square consistency are presented along with applications of the estimator to certain statistical problems. (Author/RC)

In intervention studies, it is important to assess whether one program might be more effective for individuals with extreme initial difficulties, while another might be more effective for individuals with less extreme initial difficulties. In setting in which time-series data are obtained for each person, this entails examining interactions…