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The vast majority of social exclusion research has taken place outside of the workplace (i.e., in social settings). In addition, researchers often use a myriad of terms (i.e., ostracism, exclusion, rejection) when describing and investigating exclusion-related phenomena thus contributing to widespread conceptual confusion with respect to this construct. Moreover, past studies have failed to consider the role of social exchange in determining how individuals may react to being excluded by others particularly in a work setting. I sought to address these issues by conducting three multi-wave studies which develop and test a social-exchange based model of interpersonal workplace exclusion (IWE). Specifically, I created and validated two measures (i.e., coworker and supervisor) of IWE. In addition, I examined the discriminant, convergent and predictive validity of these scales. The results of these studies produced two distinct, unidimensional measures of IWE an 8-item coworker IWE scale and an 8-item supervisor IWE scale. Additional analyses revealed that IWE is negatively related to, albeit distinct from, workplace inclusion and is part of the broader conceptual domain of antisocial workplace behavior which includes theoretically similar constructs namely, workplace incivility, counterproductive workplace behavior and workplace bullying. In addition, IWE was found to be negatively related to perceived interpersonal fair treatment, job satisfaction and leader-member exchange (LMX) as well as positively related to job induced tension. Lastly, results of the third study provided support for an exchange-based model of IWE such that both coworker and supervisor IWE measures were associated with employee social undermining behavior, reduced effort and lower levels of organizational citizenship behaviors.

The last two decades have seen a surge in published research on primate personality. This surge contrasts with the paucity of research over the preceding century. People interested in primate personality research come from a broad range of fields, but they are all interested in measuring primate personality in a way that is reliable, valid, and practical. This dissertation aims to describe the development and evaluation of the construct validity of a new rating scale in chimpanzees. The scale is based on a bottom-up approach to scale development and was developed using steps from both Uher (2008a,b) and Gosling (1998). As described in Chapter 3, the scale was evaluated by using it to rate 143 chimpanzees at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Facility in Bastrop, TX. Twenty-one people who have worked with the chimpanzees between 6 months to 20 years rated the chimpanzees. Chapter 4 describes how inter-class correlation coefficients (ICCs) were used to calculate the reliability of the items on the scale. There was only one item (predictable) that turned out to not be reliable. The other 40 items were included in subsequent analyses. An exploratory factor analysis, as described in Chapter 5, was performed in order to determine the structure underlying the scale. Five methods were used to determine that a six-factor solution fit the data best. The six factors were labeled Reactivity, Dominance, Openness, Extroversion Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness based on the degree to that they correlated with other previous chimpanzees scales that used those labels. The convergent and discriminant validity of the factors was evaluated, as described in Chapter 6, by looking at the predicted relationships between each of the six factors and the variables of sex, age, rearing history, behavior in reaction to a novel stimulus, general behavior, injuries, illnesses, blood chemistry, and cortisol. The results indicate that there is a lack of evidence for convergent validity, but some evidence for discriminant validity of the new chimpanzee rating scale. The discussion in Chapter 7 focuses on the findings from the study as well as strengths and limitations of the new chimpanzee rating scale. / text

The major purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the construct validity of a new parent rating scale, the Home and Community Social Behavior Scales (HCSBS), that was used to measure the social skills and antisocial behaviors of at-risk youth in Northern Utah. The results indicate that the HCSBS possesses strong internal consistency with high alphas. Convergent validity with both teacher ratings and student self-ratings of social competence and antisocial behavior appeared slight. Discriminant validity was indicated by the near zero correlations between the HCSBS and the KTEA. The instrument appeared able to detect group differences as indicated by the large and clinically significant effect size differences between at-risk and non-at-risk sample mean scores, as well as a 92.37 correct classification percentage. Finally, the factor analysis of the HCSBS suggested four social competency factors and three antisocial behavior factors, which were extremely similar to the results obtained for the teacher version of the instrument. Directions for future research, as well as implications and limitations of the current study, are noted.

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The construct validity of six hypothesized dimensions was explored for an Accountancy majorgraduation examination, in order to understand the underlying process of responding. Using answers from 313 examinees to an intentional sample of 17 objective items administered on large scale, a confirmatory factorial analysis was carried out, with a Multi-Trait Multi-Method matrix (MTMM): Traits represented three cognitive operations required to solve the items and the methods represented three knowledge fields of the content. Each item was linked to a cog- nitive operation and to a knowledge field. The resulting model showed convergent validity in two constructs and its manifest variables and divergent only between technical and combined knowledge. Thus, the answering process was explained, simultaneously by the Understanding operation influenced by Theoretical knowledge. Implications to understanding the answering process in this type of examination through construct validation are discussed. / Se investiga la validación de constructo de seis dimensiones que están en la base del examende egreso de una licenciatura en contabilidad, con el fin de entender el proceso de respuesta subyacente. A partir de las respuestas a 17 ítems objetivos aplicados de manera grupal a 313 participantes seleccionados según muestreo intencional, se realizó un análisis factorial confirmatorio MRMM, en el que se representaron tres operaciones cognitivas demandadas para resolver los ítems y los métodos, así como los tres campos de conocimiento del contenido que se evalúa en ellos. El modelo resultante muestra bondad de ajuste, validez convergente entre dos constructos y sus variables manifiestas, además de validez divergente solo entre el conocimiento técnico y el combinado. El proceso de respuesta fue explicado, simultáneamente, por la operación comprender, influida por el conocimiento teórico. Se discuten las implicancias para comprender el proceso de respuesta en este tipo de examen a partir de la validación de constructo realizada.

The main objective of this thesis was to explore issues related to student achievement motivation in the Swedish TIMSS 2003 (Trend in International Mathematics and Science Study) context. The thesis comprises of five empirical papers and a summary. The expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation was used as the general theoretical framework in all empirical papers, and all papers are concerned with construct validation in one form or another. Aspects of student achievement motivation were measured on a task-specific level (motivation to do well on the TIMSS test) and on a domain-specific level (self-concept in and valuing of mathematics and science) and regressed on test performance. The first paper reports the development and validation of scores from an instrument measuring aspects related to student test-taking motivation. It was shown that a number of items in the instrument could be interpreted as a measure of test-taking motivation, and that the test-taking motivation construct was distinct from other related constructs. The second paper related the Swedish students’ ratings of mathematics test-taking motivation to mathematics performance in TIMSS 2003. The students in the sample on average reported that they were well motivated to do their best on the TIMSS mathematics test and their ratings of test-taking motivation were positively but rather weakly related to achievement. In the third and the fourth papers, the internal structure and relation to performance of the mathematics and science self-concept and task value scales used in TIMSS internationally was investigated for the Swedish TIMSS 2003 sample. For mathematics, it was shown that the internationally derived scales were suitable also for the Swedish sample. It was further shown that ratings of self-concept were rather strongly related to mathematics achievement while ratings of mathematics value were basically unrelated to mathematics achievement. For the science subjects, the internal structure of the scales was less simple, and ratings of self-concept and valuing of science were not very strongly related to science achievement. The study presented in the fifth paper used interviews and an open-ended questionnaire item to further investigate student test-taking motivation and perceptions of the TIMSS test. The results mainly corroborated the results from study II. In the introductory part of the thesis, the empirical studies are summarized, contextualized, and discussed. The discussion relates obtained results to theoretical assumptions, applied implications, and to issues of validity in the TIMSS context.