Aim: The current study investigated a pattern of associations between executive functions and everyday functioning in a sample of schizophrenia patients with the aim to specify the ecological validity. The ecological validity as a specific form of external validity refers to the extent of the relation of the test outcome measures and patients' behaviour in everyday situations. Sample and methods: A sample of 77 patients (22 women and 55 men) with the diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, who met study inclusion criteria, was assessed with several executive function tests: Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), Trail Making Test B (TMT B), Phonemic Verbal Fluency Test and Semantic Verbal Fluency Test (VF), Similarities from Wechsler Adult Inteligence Scale (WAIS III), Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test in Boston Qualitative Scoring System (BQSS), and with rating scales for patients' behavior in everyday situations - Personal and Social Performance Scale (PSPs), newly developed clinical scale (CliSca), Interview for Assessment of Insight (SAI) and patients' self rating in Social Functioning Scale (SFS). Relationships between demografic measures and test outcomes were examined. Results: Verbal fluency tests did correlate significantly with the newly developed clinical scale that seems...

This research project was designed to demonstrate the usefulness of a supportive intervention program for 17 nine to 14 year old siblings of autistic children. Current clinical practice has begun most recently to include the siblings of handicapped children in treatment services as a preventive measure to help maximize families' coping abilities and to increase the chances that they will be strengthened by their unique circumstances. Although research evidence suggests that most siblings are not at risk for serious psychopathology, it seems reasonable to assume that few remain unaffected by living with a handicapped brother or sister. Siblings report that they have increased responsibilities, many unanswered questions, and parents who typically are caught up in the stresses of caring for a handicapped child and have limited time to attend to their needs. It was hypothesized that an intervention program providing information about the handicapping condition, autism, and offering support through participation in a discussion group with other siblings of autistic children would effect improved coping in the participants. Three time-limited interventions (information plus support, information plus activity, and activity control) were compared under controlled conditions. Sibling coping was measured by a) a battery of self-report and parent ratings of behavior and attitudes, b) clinical observations, and c) sibling and parent anecdotal accounts. Descriptive behavioral and attitudinal data on the total sibling sample indicated more deviant individual profiles than would be expected in the normal population. Consistent with previous research and clinical practice with this subject population, children who were identified with problems were those generally thought to be at greatest risk such as older female and younger male siblings who have assumed extensive caretaking responsibilities for the autistic child. Specific group changes following intervention were confounded by individual subject reactions to the various procedures. Qualitative aspects of the siblings' participation were discussed in terms of implications for future clinical intervention and research with this sibling population.

The problem with which this investigation is concerned is that students of unequal writing ability are frequently placed in the same beginning media writing classes in college journalism. It is difficult for a teacher to be effective when the ability of the students ranges from those who cannot write clear complete sentences to others whose work already appears in newspapers and magazines. The purpose of this study is to determine whether students who are ability grouped into slow—average and advanced groups do the same, better, or worse than heterogeneously grouped students. In the spring semester of 1987, students in Journalism 1345, Media Writing laboratory, at the University of Texas at Arlington, were given a pretest to determine how well they wrote a simple news story and a simple feature story. On the basis of that test, which was graded by three raters, the students were placed in two separate ability groups in three classes. The fourth class contained students with heterogeneous abilities who were not placed in groups. At the end of the semester a posttest was given in news and feature writing. A two-way analysis of variance was used to analyze the posttest scores of sixty-seven students. There was no significant difference in the posttest scores of students who were grouped homogeneously and those who were grouped heterogeneously. The difference in the scores of heterogeneously grouped advanced students and homogeneously grouped advanced students was not significantly different from the difference between the posttest scores of heterogeneously grouped slow-average students and homogeneously grouped slow-average students.

<p>With increasing demands in people’s work and life, successful self-regulation of multiple goals/tasks becomes important to one’s well-being and performance. One individual difference in this process is one’s preference for multitasking (i.e., polychronicity), which was found to be important in individuals’ psychological experience and performance. However, in terms of our understanding of the nature of this construct, there are at least two issues: 1) most research has assumed that preference for multitasking and preference for sequential pursuit are opposite ends of one continuum, which has not been directly tested; 2) different scales of polychronicity differ on their definitions of multitasking. To address these gaps, the present research seeks to clarify the relationships among individuals’ multitasking preferences and to develop a new and improved scale of these individual differences for future research in multitasking. To do so, three studies (<em>N</em> = 1367) were conducted to create and validate a scale that measures three potentially distinct preferences: concurrent preference, switching preference, and sequential preference. These studies empirically tested the relationships among the three preferences. The results were replicated in both goal and task contexts and with different response anchors. Findings suggest that it is questionable to assume multitasking preference and sequential preference are antithetical, while concurrent and switching preferences were highly correlated. I conclude with a discussion of the theoretical implications and future directions for multitasking research.</p>

This chapter begins by describing the appearance of motor abilities, social and play behavior, sexual maturity, and sensory function in laboratory rats. It then discusses cognitive function, the development of simple stimulus associations made in conditioned taste aversion, and complex associations necessitated in spatial memory. The development of brain structures and their possible role in these behaviors are also discussed.

Today’s society is developing in a high paced environment and in line with this high pace an expansion is occurring in the accounting profession which is also creating a development in the industry. Since there is a possibility of scarcity in the future the demand for the accounting profession has increased. Thus, back in 2018 the authority changed the qualification requirements to become a certified accountant. Hence, to attract the population to apply for an accounting degree. The purpose of this study is to identify the requirements desired by the employer while in an accounting recurring process, both prior and subsequent the amendment of the law, furthermore whether a change has occurred. The data collection method has been in the form of document study, by reviewing job advertisements designed for the accounting profession then examining the requirements on personal abilities, experiences as well as knowledge desired before and after amendment of the law. 100 job advertisements were examined, the first 50 refer to prior and the remaining 50 refer to following the amended education requirements. The result was visualized on separate tables and charts. The study shows that the desire for personal abilities has reduced on the advertisements since the change in the requirements. Hence, after the change in law the employers are focusing on education and work experiences as these are more demanded in the job advertisements. Though, the view on the ideal characteristic in comparison with the previous research has not changed much. The personal characteristics that were mentioned in the previous research was ability to work as part of a team, independent, communication, analytical and ability to work professionally. However, the difference between the prior research and this study, demonstrates the importance characteristics in a professional accountant also includes the ability being driven, business behavior, service oriented, flexible, accurate and goal oriented. As a suggestion this study can be used for future studies and to take a further step into performing an interview for an accountant profession. For the reason being to comprehend a detailed image of how the accounting profession has been affected by the amendment of the law. This study is written in the Swedish language. / Dagens samhälle utvecklas i en hög takt och i takt med denna utveckling sker det en tillväxt inom revisorsprofessionen men även en utveckling. Då allt fler revisorer behövs och det finns risk för brist på yrket i framtiden, ändrade regeringen år 2018 utbildningskraven för att bli auktoriserad revisor. Detta för att locka fler till att söka sig till utbildningen. Denna studie syftar till att identifiera vilka krav som arbetsgivarna eftertraktar vid rekrytering av revisorer, både innan och efter lagändringarna samt om det har skett någon förändring. Datainsamlingsmetoden har varit i form av dokumentstudie, genom att granska platsannonser riktade mot revisorer och studera kraven på personliga egenskaper, erfarenheter samt kunskaper som efterfrågades i platsannonserna både före och efter lagändringarna. Totalt granskades 100 platsannonser, där 50 av dessa berör innan ändrade utbildningskrav och resterande 50 platsannonser avser efter ändringarna av utbildningskraven. Dessa analyserades och resultatet visualiserades i separata tabeller och diagram. Resultatet av studien visar att efterfrågan på personliga egenskaper har minskats i platsannonserna sedan lagändringarna. Detta beror på att arbetsgivarna har efter lagändringarna fokuserat mer på utbildning och arbetslivserfarenhet då dessa efterfrågas mer i platsannonserna. Däremot har synen på ideala egenskaper i jämförelse med tidigare forskningar inte ändrats så mycket. De personliga egenskaperna som hade nämnts i tidigare forskningar var samarbetsförmåga, självständig, kommunikativ, analytisk samt professionell. Dock är skillnaden mellan tidigare forskningar och denna studie när det gäller viktigaste egenskaperna hos revisorer att det har även inkluderats egenskaperna driven, affärstänkande, serviceorienterad, flexibel, noggrann och målfokuserad. Förslagsvis kan framtida studier ta denna studie steget vidare genom att utföra intervjuer inom revisorsprofessionen. Detta för att få en mer detaljerad bild av hur revisoryrket har påverkats av lagändringarna.

Study Design: Cross Sectional Objectives: To develop a functional measurement tool to assess the physical abilities in male gymnasts and to evaluate the test-retest reliability and face validity of that measurement tool. Background: Despite the availability of physical fitness field-tests for many competitive sports, a reliable and valid test to measure the physical abilities (strength, endurance, balance, coordination, agility, and flexibility) of male gymnasts has not been explored or developed. The Men's Gymnastics Functional Measurement Tool (MGFMT) is a set of functional measurements used to objectively measure physical abilities required of male gymnasts. The MGFMT is a field-test designed to improve coaches' abilities to monitor their gymnasts' physical fitness levels and to help identify physical weaknesses that can be improved to create a more all-around physically fit gymnast. Methods: Eighty-three, 7 to 18 year-old competitive male club gymnasts (Level 4-10) were assessed. From these 83 total subjects, a convenience sample of 30 subjects was chosen to participate to establish the test-retest reliability of individual items and performance of the entire tool. These 30 subjects were retested with the MGFMT one week after initial testing. Test conditions and administration were consistent between the 2 administrations of the MGFMT including warm-up and item order. Statistics: Test-retest reliability was analyzed for each of the individual items using Intraclass Correlation Coefficient. Validity was analyzed using linear regression of the athletes' USA-Gymnastics competition level, predicting the component-test raw scores as well as the MGFMT total test score, resulting in a coefficient of determination (r2). Hypotheses: 1) The MGFMT individual items and the MGFMT total composite score demonstrated good test re-test reliability (Intraclass Correlation coefficient (ICC) >0.80). 2) There is a strong relationship between the MGFMT total composite score and the current competitive level of the gymnasts tested (r > 0.80). Results: The mean age of participating subjects was 11.07 years (range 7 - 18) with subjects reporting participation in competitive gymnastics for a mean of 4.36 years. Mean height and weight of the subjects were 37.5 kg and 142.8 cm respectively. Thirteen potential component tests were originally considered for inclusion in the MGFMT. Three component tests were eliminated based on physical ability tested, ease of test application, statistical analysis, and consultation with an informal panel of experts. Several of the relationships between the subjects' current USA Gymnastics competitive level and individual component test item raw scores were statistically significant, however, those relationships ranged from poor to good based on r2 scores (r2 = 0.004-0.64). The relationship between MGFMT composite test score (out of a possible score of 100) and the subjects' current USA Gymnastics competitive level was found to be good (r2 = 0.63). To rule out alternative explanations for the relationship between USA Gymnastics competitive level and MGFMT composite test scores, the relationships between MGFMT composite test scores and age, MGFMT composite test scores and bodyweight and MGFMT total composite scores and total hours training per week were also explored (r2 = 0.30, 0.48, and 0.56, respectively). Reliability testing of the MGFMT composite test score showed excellent test-retest reliability over a one-week period (ICC=0.97). Test-retest reliability of the individual component tests ranged from good to excellent (ICC = 0.75-0.97). Conclusion: The MGFMT, a 10-component field test of male gymnast physical abilities was found to be reliable and valid.

Identification and selection of a speech-language caseload in the school setting can be a challenging task. The initial stages of caseload selection are usually in the form of a screening procedure. Although speech-language information is gathered at that time, information about its relationship to each student's academic status is usually not obtained. Such information would be useful in a setting that requires the provision of special education services to be justified from a basis of academic need.

Title: Competence profile of a women's football coach Aims: The main aim of the thesis is to create six competence profiles of a women's football coach, from the perspective of players, coaches, adult players, adolescent players, lower division players and upper division players. A partial aim is to compare the importance of individual competences for the aforementioned groups of respondents. Methods: The thesis used quantitative research methods. After reviewing professional literature, a list of three groups of 55 competences necessary for the work of a women's football coach was compiled. By means of an electronic questionnaire, women's football coaches and female football players in all adult and adolescent divisions were asked to assess the importance of individual competences. The questionnaire had a total of 424 respondents. Results: Six competence profiles of women's football coaches were created in the thesis, according to players, coaches, adult players, adolescent players, lower division players and upper division players. These competence profiles include competences from all competence groups; personality traits, abilities and skills and coaching and professional aptitude. The greatest differences were found between coaches and players, where players consider fairness, knowledge of the...

Title: Competency profile of a beach soccer coach Objectives: The main goal of the thesis is construction of two competency profiles. First one is constructed from the perspective of players and second one from the perspective of representatives of beach soccer clubs. Subsequently, these competency profiles are compared and linked to the results and brief recommendations, which aim is to help in the future selection of coaches. Methods: The thesis uses two main methods, which are electronic questioning and semi-structured interview. As part of the electronic survey, a questionnaire was created and distributed to respondents via e-mail or social networks. Results: The results revealed that there are certain similarities between the competencies that players and club management consider important, which can be used to better selection, evaluation, rewarding and developing coaches. Competence profiles and a special scheme have been created, which are the main output of the thesis and thus represent the greatest benefit. Keywords: personality predispositions, abilities, skills, competency model, coach