An adaptation of the Critical Thinking Disposition Scale in Spanish youth
Abstract Background Enhancing students’ critical thinking (CT) is an essential goal of higher education. Although there are many instruments to assess its cognitive dimension, this is not so in the case of dispositional thinking. Our aim is to examine the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Critical Thinking Disposition Scale (CTDS; Sosu, 2013). Method Data come from 1064 students in their final years at high school and university in Spain. We report validity evidence based on its internal structure by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and an estimation of reliability and measurement invariance by gender. Additionally, nomological validity study with a multiple-indicator …
Association Between Group Identification at School and Positive Youth Development: Moderating Role of Rural and Urban Contexts.
These studies are framed within Social Identity Theory and the Positive Youth Development approach. The aim is: (1) to analyze the relationship between group identification at school and key positive development variables (such as self-esteem, self-efficacy, assertiveness, empathy, alexithymia, satisfaction with life, and academic performance); and (2) examine the moderator role of context (rural or urban areas of residence) and sex in these relationships. The samples were composed of 246 adolescents from a rural context (Study 1) and 156 students from rural and urban contexts (Study 2). As proposed in our hypotheses, the results show statistically significant relationships between group id…
Q-Coh: A tool to screen the methodological quality of cohort studies in systematic reviews and meta-analyses
The evaluation of the methodological quality of primary studies in a systematic review is a key process to enhance the likelihood of achieving valid results. When considering non-randomized designs as cohort studies, this process becomes even more critical, since these designs are more susceptible to bias than randomized controlled trials are. Taking this into account, a tool, named Q-Coh, was designed with the aim to screen the methodological quality of the primary studies with a cohort design priming specificity over sensitivity in a reasonable application time. After applying it to 21 prospective cohort studies by three raters, all domains had a moderate to good agreement, with all excep…
Wording effects and the factor structure of the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12)
The 12-item version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) has become a popular screening instrument with which to measure general psychological health in different settings. Previous studies into the factorial structure of the GHQ-12 have mainly supported multifactor solutions, and only a few recent works have shown that the GHQ-12 was best represented by a single substantive factor when method effects associated with negatively worded items were considered. Confirmatory factor analysis was applied to compare competing measurement models from previous research, including correlated traits-correlated methods and correlated traits-correlated uniquenesses approaches, to obtain further e…
Overdispersion tests in count-data analysis.
Count data are commonly assumed to have a Poisson distribution, especially when there is no diagnostic procedure for checking this assumption. However, count data rarely fit the restrictive assumptions of the Poisson distribution. The violation of much of such assumptions commonly results in overdispersion, which invalidates the Poisson distribution. Undetected overdispersion may entail important misleading inferences, so its detection is essential. In this study, different overdispersion diagnostic tests are evaluated through two simulation studies. In Exp. 1, the nominal error rate is compared under different sample sizes and Λ conditions. Analysis shows a remarkable performance of the χ…
Positive Adolescent Development: Effects of a Psychosocial Intervention Program in a Rural Setting
The Positive Youth Development (PYD) approach identifies adolescents as resources to be empowered rather than problems to be solved. All adolescents have strengths and will fully develop when these strengths are integrated with healthy resources in the diverse environments where they live and interact. The objective of this study was twofold: (1) to present the Positive Development Program for Adolescents living in rural areas (DPAR Program) and (2) to pilot test the intervention program. The DPAR program was evaluated using a repeated-measures design before and after the intervention, with an intervention group and a control group. The sample consisted of 176 adolescents between 11 and 15 …
THE FAMILY DEBATE ON VALUES AND LIVING TOGETHER: A COMMUNITY-BASED APPROACH THROUGH PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH
This article presents a participatory action research that began with collaboration between the community and the university. An intervention was carried out in the form of Family Debate about Values and Living Together. Its objectives were to promote reflection and dialogue about values and living together in families and capture those families’ views on values and living together in the main contexts of socialization–family, school, and peers–and to apply that vision in the process of analyzing and transforming their reality. Participants in this study were 2,321 families living in the County of Bages in Barcelona province (Spain) with at least one child between 8 and 12 years of age. The…
Cognitive and personality variables as predictors of sexism against women in Spanish adolescents
Previous research on the antecedents of sexism against women have not considered simultaneously the effects of sex, personality, and cognitive variables (need for closure and critical thinking disposition) in relation to sexism. We evaluated whether in adolescence, these indicators could predict sexist attitudes towards women using structural models. The sample comprised 709 Spanish high-school students (mean age = 16.79). 51.5% were female. Sex (being male), need for closure and critical thinking were the most relevant predictors of sexism. The disposition to think critically is as relevant as the motivational dimension of cognition (need for closure) to predict sexism. Multi-group struct…
Modeling joint and marginal distributions in the analysis of categorical panel data
This article presents a unifying approach to the analysis of repeated univariate categorical (ordered) responses based on the application of the generalized log-linear modeling framework proposed by Lang and Agresti. It is shown that three important research questions in longitudinal studies can be addressed simultaneously. These questions are the following: What is the overall dependence structure of the repeated responses? What is the structure of the change between consecutive time points? and What is the structure of the change in the marginal distributions? Each of these questions involves specifying log-linear models for different marginal distributions of the multiway cross classifi…
La docencia de Estadística en el Grado de Psicología: una experiencia de colaboración interdisciplinar con la asignatura de Psicología Social del Trabajo.
Se presenta una experiencia de innovación docente fundamentada en la colaboración interdisciplinar entre los estudiantes y profesores de dos asignaturas de la titulación de Psicología de la Universitat de València: Estadística y Psicología Social del Trabajo. De acuerdo a la valoración de los propios estudiantes y de los profesores, esta experiencia ha tenido un efecto positivo en el aprendizaje de los contenidos de ambas asignaturas, a la vez que un importante papel motivador para los estudiantes, estimulándoles a valorar la estadística como una parte integral del proceso de investigación y como un elemento importante de su formación.
Modeling offenses among motorcyclists involved in crashes in Spain.
In relative terms, Spanish motorcyclists are more likely to be involved in crashes than other drivers and this tendency is constantly increasing. The objective of this study is to identify the factors that are related to being an offender in motorcycle accidents. A binary logit model is used to differentiate between offender and non-offender motorcyclists. A motorcyclist was considered to be offender when s/he had committed at least one traffic offense at the moment previous to the crash. The analysis is based on the official accident database of the Spanish general directorate of traffic (DGT) for the 2003–2008 time period. A number of explanatory variables including motorcyclist character…
Testing the group polarization hypothesis by using logit models
This paper focuses on methodological aspects of group polarization research and has two well-defined parts. The first part presents a methodological overview of group polarization research together with an examination of the inadequacy, under certain circumstances, of the traditional parametric approach usually used to test this phenomenon based on pre-test/post-test means comparison across groups. It is shown that this approach will produce masks effects when groups are heterogeneous with regard to the observed change from pre-test to post-test. The second part suggests an alternative methodological approach based on logit models for the analysis of contingency tables from a categorization…
Method effects associated with negatively and positively worded items on the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12): results from a cross-sectional survey with a representative sample of Catalonian workers
This study focused on the examination of the latent structure underlying the responses to the GHQ-12, considering the role of method effects associated with both, PW and NW items, and using two alternative parameterisations of the CFA measurement models. What should first be noted is that the studies that have included method effects in the measurement model of the GHQ-12 have been more the exception than the rule in previous research into the factor structure of this questionnaire. According to the results of the present study, we conclude that the GHQ-12 factor structure is best characterised by introducing latent method factors that capture both the method effects associated with NW and …
Polarization is first and foremost a categorical phenomenon: a comment on Kiers
Visualizing parameters from loglinear models
This paper presents a graphical display for the parameters resulting from loglinear models. Loglinear models provide a method for analyzing associations between two or several categorical variables and have become widely accepted as a tool for researchers during the last two decades. An important part of the output of any computer program focused on loglinear models is that devoted to estimation of parameters in the model. Traditionally, this output has been presented using tables that indicate the values of the coefficients, the associated standard errors and other related information. Evaluation of these tables can be rather tedious because of the number of values shown as well as their r…