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A study of psoriasis : a methodological critiqueFord, Prudence Craig, Ford, Roberta Jeanne, Swanson, Susan 01 January 1979 (has links)
According to the National Psoriasis Foundation (1976), psoriasis is a little known and poorly understood skin disease afflicting an estimated eight million victims in the United States. About fifteen thousand new cases of psoriasis are diagnosed each year. It affects men and women in equal numbers at any age, most often between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five.
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A grounded theory investigation of dyadic interactional harmony and discord: development of a nonlinear dynamical systems theory and process-modelWaugh, Ralph Matthews 28 August 2008 (has links)
Not available / text
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Applications of Bayesian statistical model selection in social scienceresearchSo, Moon-tong., 蘇滿堂. January 2007 (has links)
published_or_final_version / abstract / Social Sciences / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy
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Objectivity, power and interests : a sociological analysisJacobz, Melville 12 1900 (has links)
Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2001. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Discourse about the human world has, since Socrates, been structured around the
assumption that one view of a given matter is better than competing views, and that
argumentation, if carried out correctly and systematically, will favour the view which
has the preponderance of reasons and evidence on its side. If this supposition were
dropped, the nature of social scientific inquiry would change significantly.
For many commentators in the social sciences the ineliminable interpretative
dimension of social inquiry and the standpoint-bound character of interpretation lead
to the conclusion that we have to abandon any notion of objective truth in the social
sciences. The central question raised in this thesis is whether this abandonment is
inevitable or even plausible. Is it plausible to conflate objectivity and truth? Is
objectivity a possible characteristic of the individual researcher or a characteristic of
the scientific research process? Does the cultural environment of the researcher
impact on the validity of research findings? If science is a social phenomenon, are
scientific beliefs different from other beliefs? How do the interests of the individual
researcher or the formal organisation of scientific practice impact on the validity of
findings? What role does power play in the shaping of knowledge? These are the
questions that will be addressed in the following thesis.
The methodology of Max Weber serves as a point of departure and divergences
and similarities to the work of Weber are explored in the writings of Kuhn, the
Edinburgh School, Latour, Foucault, Habermas, as well as contemporary
postmodernist and feminist writers. The analysis of these various concepts and
approaches is not presented chronologically, but rather as an exposition of the
contributors of various commentators in the fields of both the sociology of science
and knowledge, and the philosophy of science. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Diskoers oor die menslike wêreld is, sedert Socrates, gestuktureer rondom die
aanname dat een siening van 'n gegewe saak beter is as mededingende sienings,
en dat argumentasie, indien korrek en sistematies uitgevoer, ten voordeel sal wees
van die siening wat gesteun word deur die oormaat van redes en bewyse. As ons
hierdie aanname sou laat vaar, sal die stand van sosiaal wetenskaplike ondersoek
ingrypend verander.
Vir menige kommentator in die sosiale wetenskappe lei die onafwendbare
interpretatiewe dimensie van maatskaplike ondersoek, en die standpunt-gebonde
aard van interpretasie, tot die gevolgtrekking dat ons enige opvatting van
objektiwiteit in die sosiale wetenskappe moet laat vaar. Die kernvraag in hierdie
tesis is of hierdie verskuiwing onvermydelik of selfs aanneemlik is. Is dit geldig om
objektiwiteit en waarheid saam te snoer? Is objektiwiteit 'n moontlike eienskap van
die individuele navorser, of 'n eienskap van die navorsingsproses? Watter impak het
die kulturele omgewing van die navorser op die geldigheid van die
navorsingsbevindinge? As wetenskap 'n sosiale fenomeen is, is wetenskaplike
oortuigings enigsins anders as ander oortuigings? Watter impak het die belange van
'n individuele navorser, of die formele organsiasie van wetenskaplike praktyk, op die
geldigheid van bevindings? Watter rol speel mag in die vorming en skepping van
kennis? Hierdie is die vrae wat aangespreek word in dié tesis.
Die metodologie van Max Weber dien as vertrekpunt, en ooreenkomste tot en
afwykings van die sienings van Weber word ondersoek in die werk van Kuhn, die
"Edinburgh School", Latour, Foucault, Habermas, sowel as kontemporêre
postmoderne en feministiese skrywers. Die analise van hierdie verskeie konsepte
en benaderings word nie kronologies aangebied nie, maar eerder as 'n uiteensetting
van die bydraes van verskeie kommentators op die gebied van die sosiologie van
die wetenskap en van kennis, sowel as die filosofie van wetenskap.
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Maatskaplike ontwikkelingsvennootskappe tussen die korporatiewe sektor, die staat en nie-winsgewende organisasiesPretorius, Rene 03 1900 (has links)
Thesis (MSocialWork)--Stellenbosch University, 2002. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The aim of this study was the formulation of guidelines for the organising of
developmental partnerships, of which the key components may be seen as:
• the corporate sector;
• the State; and
• the non-profit or non-Governmental sector.
A literature study was completed, focusing on the partnership strategy within the context
of the social developmental approach. In-depth focus was placed on the elements of an
effective developmental partnership, as well as the manner in which such a partnership
should be organised.
An empirical study was completed in order to investigate the nature of the developmental
partnership strategy; the characteristics of an effective strategy; and the nature of the
various and distinctive organisational components. Data was gathered from a study
sample determined by means of purposive selection of developmental partnerships in the
Western Cape. This sample comprised four (4) representatives each of the corporate
sector, the State and the non-Governmental sector.
Three (3) different self-administered questionnaires were used for data-gathering - one
type of questionnaire for each of the sectors mentioned. The questionnaires were
distributed amongst the twelve (12) respondents - thus, in total comprising four (4)
distinctive developmental partnerships.
The findings primarily relate to the following three aspects:
• the nature of the developmental partnership strategy within the current social
developmental context;
• the requisite elements necessary for effective developmental partnerships; and
• the organisation of these partnerships. Of the various findings, the following may be considered to be of primary significance.
A developmental partnership is possible between all the parties, irrespective of the sector
where they are involved. The partnerships are, however, increasingly being regulated by
means of policy and are thus consequently becoming increasingly formal and
institutionalized. All parties are active participants in the developmental partnerships,
and contributions by each of the parties are usually made in the form of service
provisions or service-producing activities. The parties, however, do attach value or
importance to certain specific elements of the partnership - which in tum have a
significant influence on determining the effectiveness of that partnership. It is on these
principles that the organising of the developmental partnership is based.
There are diverse reasons for the concluding of a developmental partnership which
generally differ from one partner to the next. The partners in such a developmental
partnership are selected according to specific criteria. Certain criteria are of greater
significance for certain partners than for others. However, a key element does appear to
be a sufficient degree of "cultural fit" between the partners. Certain mechanisms are
utilized in order to promote this "fit".
Despite the structure of the developmental partnership being adaptable and flexible, there
appears to be a strong indication that the partnership is control-assured. The nature of
this control is facilitative. The control varies amongst the partners, depending on the
current nature of the partnership activities; the competencies of the partners; and the need
for growth within the partnership in order to realise its objectives.
A further finding concerns the need for clarity regarding the division of tasks or functions
and for co-ordination within the partnership in order to ensure its effectiveness.
Resources are contributed by the various partners, and thereby any resources, risks and
benefits inherent to the partnership are shared amongst its members. The principle of
exchange is an integral factor for the success of the partnership. It is this idea of
exchange that provides the general framework within which it is determined what each of the partners contribute to the partnership, and what benefits they derive from the
partnership.
On the basis of these conclusions, as well as the findings made in the literature study,
recommendations have been made focusing on the elements that will give rise to
effective developmental partnerships and how they should be organised in order to
promote the desired success. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die doel van die studie was om riglyne op te stel vir die organisering van
ontwikkelingsvennootskappe. Die korporatiewe sektor, die Staat en die nie-winsgewende
of nie-staatsektor is by hierdie unieke vennootskappe betrokke.
Ten einde hierdie riglyne op te stel is 'n literatuurstudie gedoen oor die
vennootskapstrategie binne die konteks van die maatskaplike ontwikkelingsbenadering.
In die literatuurstudie is elemente van 'n effektiewe vennootskap, asook die wyse om so
'n vennootskap te organiseer, indringend ondersoek.
'n Empiriese ondersoek is ook gedoen om die aard van die vennootskapstrategie, die
kenmerke van 'n effektiewe vennootskap en die aard van organiseringskomponente te
bepaal. Die steekproef vir die ondersoek is bekom deur 'n doelbewuste seleksie van
ontwikkelingsvennootskappe in die Wes-Kaap provinsie. Hiervolgens is vier (4)
verteenwoordigers van die korporatiewe sektor, die Staat en die nie-staatsektor
onderskeidelik by die studie betrek.
Daar is gebruik gemaak van drie verskillende selfgeadministreerde vraelyste, een vir elke
sektor onderskeidelik. Hierdie vraelyste is versprei na die twaalf respondente. Die twaalf
respondente het bestaan uit vier verteenwoordigers van elk van die drie partye betrokke
en het dus vier (4) verskillende ontwikkelingsvennootskappe behels.
Die bevindings wat gemaak is, hou hoofsaaklik verband met die volgende drie aspekte:
• die aard van die vennootskapstrategie binne die huidige maatskaplike
ontwikkelingskonteks;
• elemente noodsaaklik vir 'n effektiewe vennootskap; en
• die organisering van 'n vennootskap.
Die belangrikste bevindings was die volgende. 'n Vennootskap is moontlik tussen al die
partye, ongeag die sektor waarby hulle betrokke is. Hierdie vennootskappe word
toenemend deur beleid gerig, en gevolglik is dit toenemend formeel en
geïnstitusionaliseerd. Al die partye is aktief betrokke by die vennootskappe. Bydraes
word deur die vennote gelewer in die vorm van diensvoorsienings- of
diensproduseringsaktiwiteite. Die vennote heg waarde aan sekere spesifieke elemente in
die vennootskap. Hierdie elemente het 'n beduidende invloed op die bevordering van
effektiwiteit. Die organisering van die vennootskap wentel om hierdie beginsels.
Daar is verskillende redes vir die aangaan van die vennootskap. Hierdie redes kan verskil
van vennoot tot vennoot. Vennote vir die vennootskap word volgens spesifieke kriteria
geselekteer. Sekere kriteria is meer belangrik vir sommige vennote as vir ander. Wat
veral belangrik is, is 'n bevredigende kulturele passing ("cultural fit") tussen die vennote.
Sekere meganismes word benut om hierdie passing of verenigbaarheid te bevorder.
Alhoewel die struktuur van die vennootskap aanpasbaar en buigsaam is, is daar egter 'n
sterk aanduiding dat die vennootskapsbeheer verseker is. Die aard van die vennootskapsbeheer is fasiliterend. Die beheer wissel van vennoot tot vennoot,
afhangende van die aard van die aktiwiteite, die bevoeghede van die vennote en die
behoefte binne die vennootskap om te groei en sy doelwitte te bereik.
'n Verdere bevinding wat gemaak is, is dat duidelike werkverdeling en -koördinering in
die vennootskap noodsaaklik is vir effektiewe samewerking. Die hulpbronne word
bygedra deur die onderskeie vennote. Sodoende word hulpbronne, risiko's en voordele
wat verbonde is aan die vennootskap tussen die vennote verdeel. Die beginsel van
uitruiling is 'n sleutelfaktor vir die sukses van 'n vennootskap. Die idee van uitruiling
verskaf die algehele raamwerk vir die analisering van wat partye bydra en voordele wat
die vennote uit die vennootskap kry.
Op grond van hierdie afleidings en gevolgtrekkings asook die bevindings gemaak in die
literatuurondersoek is sekere aanbevelings gemaak. Die aanbevelings fokus op die
elemente wat aanleiding sal gee tot 'n effektiewe vennootskap en hoe hierdie
ontwikkelingsvennootskappe georganiseer moet word om effektief te wees.
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Research, methodology and the Internet : a study of the Internet as a data capturing toolDowling, Zoë Teresa 12 1900 (has links)
Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2001. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: It is widely accepted that the Internet has become a valuable resource for social
scientists, not just for the purpose of information exchange; via e-mail, discussion
groups and electronic journals, but also as a medium for data collection. Its global
nature gives a researcher access to a vast range of individuals located around the
world. It also opens up access to difficult to hitherto penetrate study areas, such as
sensitive research on deviant behaviour. Further, it is claimed that considerable savings
to both research budgets and time frames are made possible with the new technology.
It is not surprising, therefore, that a substantial body of research, employing the
Internet as the primary means of data collection, already exists. This raises a number
of questions as to how the Internet fares as a research tool. Are there any important
methodological issues that this new approach raises? Do the traditional research
methods suffice? Or are adaptations to existing methods necessary when difficulties
are encountered? Does such changes affect the more fundamental question of the
research design? These questions are considered in this thesis.
To answer them, I consider two different types of empirical research designs. The first,'
survey research, is a quantitative, numerical design that traditionally has a high level of
control. I consider in detail issues of sampling, including non-response, and
questionnaire design. The second design examined, ethnographic research, is
qualitative, textual and generally has a low level of researcher control. I address the
methods used in cyber ethnography and then discuss the considerable ethical concerns
that feature in such research. I conclude that, on the whole, the existing methods can be transferred to Internet
research. Indeed, some of the problems faced in traditional research are also
considerations in Internet studies and can be overcome by employing similar
techniques, such as using incentives to reduce non-response rates. However, a number
of new problems emerge, such as the lack of paralinguistic cues, which require
adaptations to the existing methods in order to produce results that can be considered
valid and reliable. However, I also argue that these necessary adaptations to the
methods do not affect the underlying principles found in the research design. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Dit word algemeen aanvaar dat die Internet In waardevolle hulpmiddel is vir
sosiaalwetenskaplikes; nie net vir die uitruil van inligting deur middel van e-pos,
besprekingsforums en elektroniese joernale nie, maar ook as In instrument om inligting
te versamel. Die globale aard van die internet gee die navorser toegang to In wye
spektrum individue internasionaal. Dit verleen ook toegang tot moeilike
navorsingsareas, soos sensitiewe navorsing oor afwykende gedrag. Verder word
beweer dat dit aansienlike besparings moontlik kan maak vir beide die
navorsingsbegroting en tydraamwerk.
Dit is dus nie verbasend dat In substansiële hoeveelheid van navorsing, wat die
Internet as die primêre bron van dataversameling gebruik, reeds bestaan nie. Dit laat
verskeie vrae ontstaan oor hoe die Internet vaar as In navorsingshulpmiddel. Is daar
enige belangrike metodologiese kwessies wat hierdie nuwe metode aanraak? Is die
tradisionele metodes voldoende? Of moet daar veranderinge aan die huidige metodes
aangebring word wanneer probleme ontstaan? Sal hierdie veranderinge die
fundamentele aspekte van navorsingsontwerp beïnvloed? Die vrae saloorweeg word in
hierdie tesis.
Ek gebruik twee empiriese navorsingsontwerpe om die vrae te beantwoord. Die eerste,
steekproefnavorsing, is In kwantitatiewe ontwerp wat tradisioneel In hoë vlak van
beheer toon. Ek ondersoek in detail kwessies van steekproewe, insluitend geen
respons en vraelysontwerp. Die tweede ontwerp wat ondersoek word, etnografiese
navorsing, is kwalitatief, tekstueel en toon in die algemeen In lae vlak van navorser beheer. Ek ondersoek die metodes wat gebruik word in kuberetnografie en bespreek
dan die etiese vraagstukke wat hierdie navorsing kenmerk.
Ek kom tot die gevolgtrekking dat oor die algemeen die huidige metodes toegepas kan
word op Internetnavorsing. Inderdaad kan van die probleme wat ondervind word in
tradisionele navorsing ook ondervind word in Internet studies en ook hier kan dit
oorkom word deur die gebruik van soortgelyke tegnieke, soos om aansporingsbonusse
om geen responskoerse te verminder, hoewel daar nuwe probleme opduik, soos die
gebrek aan para-taalkundige wenke. Dit noodsaak veranderinge aan die huidige
metodes om resultate te lewer wat geldig en betroubaar is. Ek redeneer egter ook dat
hierdie nodige veranderinge aan die metodes nie onderliggende beginsels van
navorsingsontwerp verander nie.
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Text Mining and Topic Modeling for Social and Medical Decision SupportUnknown Date (has links)
Effective decision support plays vital roles in people's daily life, as well as for
professional practitioners such as health care providers. Without correct information
and timely derived knowledge, a decision is often suboptimal and may result in signi
cant nancial loss or compromises of the performance. In this dissertation, we
study text mining and topic modeling and propose to use text mining methods, in
combination with topic models, to discover knowledge from texts popularly available
from a wide variety of sources, such as research publications, news, medical diagnose
notes, and further employ discovered knowledge to assist social and medical decision
support. Examples of such decisions include hospital patient readmission prediction,
which is a national initiative for health care cost reduction, academic research topics
discovery and trend modeling, and social preference modeling for friend recommendation
in social networks etc.
To carry out text mining, our research, in Chapter 3, first emphasizes on single
document analyzing to investigate textual stylometric features for user pro ling and
recognition. Our research confirms that by using properly designed features, it is
possible to identify the authors who wrote the article, using a number of sample articles written by the author as the training data. This study serves as the base to
assert that text mining is a powerful tool for capturing knowledge in texts for better
decision making.
In the Chapter 4, we advance our research from single documents to documents
with interdependency relationships, and propose to model and predict citation
relationship between documents. Given a collection of documents with known linkage
relationships, our research will discover e ective features to train prediction models,
and predict the likelihood of two documents involving a citation relationships. This
study will help accurately model social network linkage relationships, and can be used
to assist e ective decision making for friend recommendation in social networking, and
reference recommendation in scienti c writing etc.
In the Chapter 5, we advance a topic discovery and trend prediction principle
to discover meaningful topics from a set of data collection, and further model the
evolution trend of the topic. By proposing techniques to discover topics from text,
and using temporal correlation between trend for prediction, our techniques can be
used to summarize a large collection of documents as meaningful topics, and further
forecast the popularity of the topic in a near future. This study can help design
systems to discover popular topics in social media, and further assist resource planning
and scheduling based on the discovered topics and the their evolution trend.
In the Chapter 6, we employ both text mining and topic modeling to the
medical domain for effective decision making. The goal is to discover knowledge from
medical notes to predict the risk of a patient being re-admitted in a near future.
Our research emphasizes on the challenge that re-admitted patients are only a small
portion of the patient population, although they bring signficant financial loss. As
a result, the datasets are highly imbalanced which often result in poor accuracy for
decision making. Our research will propose to use latent topic modeling to carryout
localized sampling, and combine models trained from multiple copies of sampled data for accurate prediction. This study can be directly used to assist hospital re-admission
assessment for early warning and decision support.
The text mining and topic modeling techniques investigated in the dissertation
can be applied to many other domains, involving texts and social relationships,
towards pattern and knowledge based e ective decision making. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
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Método de referência para geração do portfólio de oportunidades de inovaçãoCavalcante, Marcia Beatriz 20 December 2012 (has links)
No âmbito das organizações empresariais, é premente a necessidade constante de lançamento de novos produtos e serviços em função da redução do time to market, o que vem requerendo maior precisão nas decisões de portfólio de oportunidades de inovação. Em específico, as questões de portfólio vêm sendo tratadas primordialmente na gestão de produtos e projetos, o que acaba por ocorrer tardiamente no Processo de Desenvolvimento de Produtos (PDP), com preocupações concentradas na revisão ou gestão do portfólio de produtos e/ou projetos. Desta forma, há um descompasso entre a geração de oportunidades de inovações e o aproveitamento destas, como produtos e projetos, o que prejudica as organizações na identificação e valoração de suas inovações; na antecipação de oportunidades que venham a se tornar inovações; no equilíbrio das escolhas dentre vários critérios inclusive não financeiros; bem como, no direcionamento do portfólio a partir de uma estratégia harmônica. Visando instrumentalizar as organizações para suprir estas dificuldades, uma vez que elas carecem de métodos e técnicas que tratem o portfólio de forma mais ampla, o objetivo da pesquisa foi propor um Método de Referência na Geração do Portfólio de Oportunidades de Inovação (MERGE-OI), o que possibilitou que organizações empresariais brasileiras gerassem e selecionassem um portfólio de oportunidades de inovações de forma mais precisa, independente de seu porte e segmentação econômica. O MERGE-OI foi aplicado em cinco empresas representativas de três segmentos econômicos: alimentos e bebidas, construção civil e eletroeletrônico. A aplicação em campo permitiu validar a sua consistência e coerência. Quanto aos métodos, esta pesquisa é primordialmente observacional e de análise de conteúdo, sendo que, os mesmos foram empregados tanto como métodos quanto técnicas, o que consolidou o desenvolvimento da pesquisa em sete grandes etapas. Foram obtidos três grandes resultados advindos da pesquisa: o método de referência MERGE-OI (diagramas de atividades, entradas, saídas, documentos e arquitetura); a validação do MERGE-OI de acordo com critérios de redução de incerteza e utilidade, bem como, o portfólio de oportunidades de inovação das cinco empresas em que se aplicou o método em campo. De forma mais ampla, esta pesquisa trouxe à tona a importância da integração entre as disciplinas de gestão de inovação, gestão de produtos e gestão de projetos. / In the context of business organizations, there is an on-going need of products and services launch on a regular basis due to time to market shortening which has been taking better choices in portfolio decisions on innovation opportunities. In particular, the issues of portfolio has been considered primarily in product and project management, which usually occurs late in the product development process (PDP) focused on reviewing and managing the portfolio of products and projects. Therefore, there is a gap between the generation of innovation opportunities and its implementation as products or projects, which affects organizations in several aspects as identifying and valuing their innovations, detecting opportunities in earlier stages such that they can be turned into innovations, balancing choices among several criteria including non-financial as well as driving portfolio decisions from strategy. In order to overcome these difficulties, since there are a lack of methods and techniques that addresses the portfolio more broadly, this research goal was to propose a reference method for portfolio generation for innovation opportunities (MERGE-OI), which has enabled business organizations to create and select a portfolio of innovation opportunities with more assertiveness, whatever the size and market segmentation. The MERGE-OI was applied in five representatives enterprises on three economic sectors: food and beverage, construction and electronics. A field survey allowed the method to be validated in terms of consistency and coherence. Regarding the research method, this research is primarily observational and content analysis, an the same methods were employed as well as techniques, which consolidated the research development in seven major steps: each of with two main phases: pre-analysis and exploration, consolidating a research corpus based on documentary and research techniques. The three main results obtained were: the reference method MERGE-OI (activity diagrams, inputs, outputs, documents and architecture), the validation of MERGE-OI according to criteria such as usefulness and precision, as well as the portfolio of innovation opportunities in the five enterprises in which MERGE-OI was applied. More broadly, this research has highlighted the importance of integration among subjects such as innovation management, product management and project management.
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"Nobody asked if I was ok:" C-section experiences of mothers who wanted a birth with limited medical interventionVan Busum, Kelly M. January 2014 (has links)
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis project aims to address the following question: How do women who were planning a vaginal birth with limited medical intervention experience an unplanned c-section? Specifically, this research project involved: completing in-depth interviews with 15 women who planned a vaginal birth with limited medical intervention but instead experienced an unplanned c-section between six months and two years ago; discovering and describing the nature of the birth the mothers originally envisioned for their child; exploring the women’s experiences with, and feelings about, the birth itself and how it might differ from what they envisioned; developing a better understanding of how these experiences and feelings affected the women during the first two years following the birth; describing any challenges they faced and how, if at all, they managed such challenges; and identifying strategies that could be used to improve the experience of women recovering from an unplanned c-section who envisioned a vaginal birth with limited medical intervention.
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DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF THE ACCULTURATIVE STRESS SCALE FOR CHINESE COLLEGE STUDENTS IN THE UNITED STATES (ASSCS)Bai, Jieru 21 December 2012 (has links)
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Chinese students are the biggest ethnic group of international students in the United States. Previous studies have identified many unique problems of Chinese students during their acculturation process and a higher level of acculturative stress than international students from other countries. A systematic review of instruments that assess acculturative stress revealed that none of the existing scales apply to Chinese students in the United States, either because of language issues or validity problems. Thus, this study aims to develop a reliable and valid scale to accurately measure the acculturative stress of Chinese students in the United States.
A 72-item pool was generated by interviewing eight Chinese students and borrowing items from existing literature and scales. The item pool was sent online to 607 Chinese students and 267 of them completed the survey. Exploratory Factor Analysis was conducted to empirically derive the factor structure of the Acculturative Stress Scale for Chinese Students (ASSCS). The results produced a 32-item scale in five dimensions, which were Language Insufficiency, Social Isolation, Perceived Discrimination, Academic Pressure, and Guilt toward Family.
The ASSCS demonstrated high reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.939) and initial validity by predicting depression (Beta = 0.490, p<.001) and life satisfaction (Beta = -0.505, p<.001). It was the first Chinese scale of acculturative stress developed and validated among a Chinese student sample in the United States. Further studies need to be conducted to provide empirical support and confirm the validity for the scale. In the future, the scale can be used as diagnosing tool and self-assessment tool.
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