1,720,954 research outputs found
A meta-theoretical taxonomy of positive psychology constructs
Get PDFM.Com. (Industrial Psychology and People Management)The present investigation is positioned at a crucial juncture in the field of positive psychology where considerable enthusiasm has seen a growing proliferation in research and practice that has outstripped the ability of the field to maintain a sense of meta-theoretical integrity and domain identity. In this study a meta-theoretical taxonomy of positive psychology is developed in order to meet the pressing need for sound meta-theoretical integration that is necessary to facilitate a multiplicity of possible futures for the field of positive psychology. This proposed meta-theoretical taxonomy delimits the dominant constructs in the field according to the taxonomical components of (1) Positive Characteristics, (2) Healthy Processes, and (3) Positive Outcomes. The utility of the developed meta-theoretical taxonomy in organizing dominant constructs within the field informs the central research problem. This problem is addressed by identifying 33 dominant positive psychology constructs, grouping them according to the theoretical principles of the proposed taxonomy, and then empirically examining whether the theoretical organization has utility in explaining latent factor structures and loadings of data for these constructs in the research sample. The research sample employed consisted of 904 undergraduate students at the University of Johannesburg. There were 694 women, 208 men and two individuals with undeclared gender in the sample. These participants represented a diversity of self-declared ethnicities: Black (630), Coloured (59), Indian / Asian (47), and White (164). Within the sample there were 19 different home languages that can be summarized as: Afrikaans (47), English (258), Indigenous South African (588), and other (9). In order to compare the theoretical organization of the 33 dominant constructs with empirically determined data, a 483 item questionnaire was developed and refined using Rasch modelling. The development of the measure of the identified constructs was informed by contemporary theory and measurement pertaining to each of the specific constructs. Following the refined measurement of the constructs, factor analytic procedures were used to determine latent factor structures for the 33 constructs. The latent factor structure and factor loadings of the specific constructs were then compared with the theorized organization determined by the proposed model. The central finding of the present investigation is that the theorized taxonomy is able to account for a deep theoretical conceptualization as to the functioning of the facets of the identified dominant constructs. This greater insight into the functioning and structure of the constructs within the field of positive psychology has profound implications for the manner in which constructs can be understood and for the manner in which these constructs can be elicited and practiced. Collectively, the meta-theoretical components of (1) Positive Characteristics, (2) Healthy Processes, and (3) Positive Outcomes represent an important meta-synthesis that serves to meet the pressing call for the firm theoretical integration necessary to secure an array of sustainable futures within the field of positive psychology
Dynamic cognitive assessment: investigating learning potential within the context of an academic institution
Get PDFM.A.The educational and psychometric contexts in South Africa are currently characterised by concerns pertaining to the potentially spurious influence of the challenges of cultural heterogeneity and of the redress of past and present disadvantagement. The present investigation forms a research response to these challenges as they relate to the practical utility of a dynamic assessment measure for the purpose of selecting students for curricula at a South African university. In response to a growing dissatisfaction with longstanding selection procedures and instruments, the utility of a dynamically derived learning potential score is explored and contrasted with the traditionally employed static intellective measure of the matriculation score. The present investigation serves to augment a growing body of research that asserts the capacity of dynamic assessment to surmount many of the criticisms typically associated with static assessment and to contribute novel and useful information regarding the intellective faculties of prospective university students. Within the context of the investigation 71 first year students enrolled for the BA Extended Degree at the University of Johannesburg were assessed using the static intellective measure of a matriculation score and the dynamically informed global learning potential score of the Ability, Processing of Information and Learning Battery Short Version (APIL-B SV). The utility of the dynamically derived learning potential score to predict academic performance during the first year of university study was examined and contrasted with the predictive efficacy of the static matriculation score. The empirically examined data served to support conjecture that a dynamic intellective measure demonstrated significant utility in predicting the future academic performance of first year university students. In addition, the ability of this measure to predict academic performance in a manner that had significant benefit over the traditionally employed static matriculation score was affirmed
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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