Search results for "Measurement"

The Agony of Choice: Acceptance, Efficiency, and Psychometric Properties of Questionnaires With Different Numbers of Response Options

2021

Questionnaires are one of the most important tools in psychological assessment, yet the impact of different numbers of response options on psychometric properties of questionnaires is limited. This study extends existing research by analyzing respondents’ acceptance of and the efficiency of different numbers of response options and replicate findings on reliability and validity. We studied these questions in 540 respondents who filled out the Big Five Inventory–2 and the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. Two response options, 11 response options and the visual analog scale showed disadvantages in acceptance compared with the original number of response options. The completion time increase…

2019

Despite the general consensus regarding the implementation of self-report measures in the training monitoring, there is a lack of research about their applicability and comprehensibility among developing athletes. However, this target group needs special considerations to manage the increasing training demands while maintaining health and performance. This study deals with challenges of applying recovery-stress questionnaires which were validated with adult populations among developing athletes and presents a possible approach to enhance their applicability. In two phases, the Acute Recovery and Stress Scale (ARSS), a 32-adjective list covering eight scales, and the 8-item derived version, …

Analyzing measurement invariance of the students’ engagement instrument brief version:the cases of Denmark, Finland, and Portugal

2017

The promotion of students’ engagement with school is an internationally acknowledged challenge in education. There is a need to examine the structure of the concept of student engagement and to discover the best practices for fostering it across societies. That is why the cross-cultural invariance testing of students’ engagement measures is highly needed. This study aimed, first, to find the reduced set of theoretically valid items to represent students’ affective and cognitive engagement forming the Brief-SEI (brief version of the Student Engagement Instrument; SEI). The second aim was to test the measurement invariance of the Brief-SEI across three countries (Denmark, Finland, and Portug…

Building dynamic balanced scorecards to enhance strategy design and planning in public utilities. Key-findings from a project in a city water company

2006

Increasing complexity and uncertainty of both business internal and external variables determines a growing need for prompt and accurate information. On this concern, in the last decade, there has been an increasing effort to provide public utilities with tools aimed to support decision makers in planning and control, by taking into account not only operational but also strategic issues. Among them, for 1instance, customer satisfaction, internal business process efficiency, business image, and bargaining power against other counterparts (e.g. the municipal administration). Often, however, such an effort has been oriented to generate a large volume of data, only focused on financial indicato…

Applying System Dynamics Modeling To Foster a Cause-and-Effect Perspective in Dealing with Behavioral Distortions Associated with a City’s Performanc…

2015

This paper aims to show how applying system dynamics methodology to performance management can provide a powerful modeling perspective enabling public sector organizations to prevent, detect, and counteract behavioral distortions associated with performance measurement. A dynamic performance management approach is able to support performance management system designers in outlining and implementing a consistent set of measures that can allow public sector decision-makers to pursue sustainable organizational learning and development. This perspective implies a major shift from a static to a dynamic picture of organizational processes and results. It means framing delays between causes and ef…

Conceptualizing and Measuring the Quality of Democracy: The Citizens' Perspective

2018

In recent years, several measurements of the quality of democracy have been developed (e.g. Democracy Barometer, Varieties of Democracy Project). These objective measurements focus on institutional and procedural characteristics of democracy. This article starts from the premise that in order to fully understand the quality of democracy such objective measurements have to be complemented by subjective measurements based on the perspective of citizens. The aim of the article is to conceptualize and measure the subjective quality of democracy. First, a conceptualization of the subjective quality of democracy is developed consisting of citizens’ support for three normative models of democracy …

Implementing Performance Reporting in Local Government: A Cross-Countries Comparison

2016

ABSTRACTProviding information on economy, efficiency, and effectiveness is one of the most important innovations in local government management, with performance reporting emerging as a new component for accountability and decision-making. This article compares 17 countries to ascertain whether there is convergence between them, studying key issues in the implementation of performance reporting by local governments. It also identifies some lessons that can be of use to countries that want to implement or improve performance reporting systems. Findings show that there is no convergence in practice or results, and that institutional factors influence the implementation of performance reportin…

Institutional Logics and Responses to Performance Measurement Systems

2012

:  This comparative study analyzes institutional logics and categorizes organizational responses to performance measurement systems (PMSs) in two Finnish cities. We refine the typology of organizational responses and suggest how the choice of response depends on the institutionalized logic in the public sector accounting context (cf. Oliver, 1991). Further, we discuss and refine the types of successful co-operation under competing institutional logics (cf. Reay and Hinings, 2009). Our study also sheds light on practice variation in public sector accounting such as how and why PMS use materializes in different forms in units with different institutional logics.

The topics of international publications on paediatric anaesthesia from 1993 to 1998.

2000

A comprehensive compilation of the current international literature on paediatric anaesthesia is still lacking. It was the aim of this study to identify all publications with a focus on paediatric anaesthesia, and to determine the spectrum of topics, as well as the publication type and language for the period between 1993 and 1998. All articles published in 12 major anaesthesia journals were evaluated and, additionally, a computerized, Internet-based Medline-search was performed using selected keywords. The analysis was limited to original articles, case reports, reviews and editorials. For the period between 1993 and 1998, a total of 2259 (377 per year) publications on paediatric anaesthes…

Production of reactive oxygen intermediates by human macrophages exposed to soot particles and asbestos fibers and increase in NF-kappa B p50/p105 mR…

1999

Alveolar macrophages (AM) play a decisive role in the immunologic defense system of the lung and in inflammatory pulmonary pathomechanisms. AM and blood monocytes (BM) were exposed to chrysotile B, soot FR 101, and Printex 90 (P 90). We evaluated the reactive oxygen intermediate (ROI) release of AM and BM after particle exposure. ROI release was measured by chemiluminescence. Thirty-minute exposure caused a significant (up to 2.5-fold) increase in ROI release of AM (100 micrograms/10(6) cells) compared with control experiments (p0.01). Identical exposure conditions for BM resulted in a similar reaction pattern (maximum 2.2-fold increase in ROI release; p0.05). After a 90-min particle exposu…