Previous psychological literature has shown mathematics anxiety in older populations to have an association with many factors, including an adverse effect on task performance. However, the origins of mathematics anxiety have, until recently, received limited attention. It is now accepted that this anxiety is rooted within the early educational years, but research has not explored the associated factors in the first formal years of schooling. Based on previous focus groups with children aged 4-7 years, ‘numeracy apprehension’ is suggested in this body of work, as the foundation phase of negative emotions and experiences, in which mathematics anxiety can develop. Building on this research, the first piece of research utilized 2 interviews and 5 focus groups to obtain insight from parents (n=7), teachers (n=9) and mathematics experts (n=2), to explore how children experience numeracy and their observations of children’s attitudes and responses. Thematic and content analysis uncovered a range of factors that characterised children’s numeracy experiences. These included: stigma and peer comparisons; the difficulty of numeracy and persistent failure; a low sense of ability; feelings of inadequacy; peer evaluation; transference of teacher anxieties; the right or wrong nature of numeracy; parental influences; dependence on peers; avoidance and children being aware of a hierarchy based on numeracy performance. Key themes reflected the focus group findings of children aged 4-7 years. This contributed to an item pool for study 2, to produce a first iteration of the Numeracy Apprehension Scale (NAS) that described day-to-day numeracy lesson situations. This 44-item measure was implemented with 307 children aged 4-7 years, across 4 schools in the U.K. Exploratory factor analysis led to a 26-item iteration of the NAS, with a 2-factor structure of Prospective Numeracy Task Apprehension and On-line Number Apprehension, which related to, for example, observation and evaluation anxiety, worry and teacher anxiety. The results suggested that mathematics anxiety may stem from the initial development of numeracy apprehension and is based on consistent negative experiences throughout an educational career. The 26-item iteration of the NAS was further validated in study 3 with 163 children aged 4-7 years, across 2 schools in the U.K. The construct validity of the scale was tested by comparing scale scores against numeracy performance on a numeracy task to determine whether a relationship between scale and numeracy task scores was evident. Exploratory factor analysis was again conducted and resulted in the current 19-item iteration of the NAS that related to a single factor of On-line Number Apprehension. This related to the experience of an entire numeracy lesson, from first walking in to completing a task and was associated with, for example, explaining an answer to the teacher, making mistakes and getting work wrong. A significant negative correlation was observed between the NAS and numeracy performance scores, suggesting that apprehensive children demonstrate a performance deficit early in education and that the NAS has the potential to be a reliable assessment of children’s numeracy apprehension. This empirical reinforces that the early years of education are the origins of mathematics anxiety, in the form of numeracy apprehension.

<p> The purpose of this study was twofold: Part 1, to empirically develop and statistically analyze a new model that measures the culture-based motivators to consume luxury wine by business travelers that identify as culturally-Chinese; and Part 2, to validate the new model. Luxury wine stakeholders may often have issues accessing luxury wine and providing the ideal choices that appeal to the business traveler from China, and yet there is a larger concern. </p> <p>In a field with a significant lack of research, it is a challenge for global stakeholders to gather information, acquire and implement cross-cultural competence, and remain knowledgeable of the most important motivators for Chinese consumers to pursue luxury wine in an environment of accelerated consumption. The intent of developing and validating this model was so that the resulting developmental process might be adopted by other researchers who wish to explore the psychological, culture-based motivators to consume luxury products by those that identify as culturally-Chinese, including, but not limited to, wine. The model provides stakeholders with culture-based knowledge to meet, or transcend, their consumers’ luxury wine purchasing, tasting, and presenting needs. It also addresses gaps in research literature surrounding luxury product consumption, such as emerging markets, global affairs, Chinese (Eastern) versus Euro-American (Western) perspectives, and consumer sociodemographics. Interdisciplinary scale development and inventory tests followed by hospitality-specific, culture-based scale development and item development literature were reviewed and deduced for model development. The scale underwent validity and reliability tests; through a rigorous scale development procedure that tested theory, the scale became a model. The findings and implications are discussed and recommendations for future research are offered.</p>

This dissertation explores the potential for higher education to promote the development of critical being among diverse students, including three studies that employ critical quantitative approaches. The first chapter proposes critical being as an alternative to critical thinking that better reflects the purposes of higher education for the public good. In Chapter Two, I create a survey-based instrument measuring critical being, including three factors that are theoretically grounded in the work of Barnett (1997) and Davies (2015). Chapter Three examines the relationship between specific instructional practices associated with academic challenge and four-year growth in critical being among three racial and/or ethnic groups traditionally underrepresented in higher education: Black and African American students, Asian and Pacific Islander students, and Hispanic, Latinx and Chicano students. Chapter Four focuses on college instructors, exploring the relationship of individual, academic, and organizational factors with instructors’ emphasis of critical being in the classroom and their beliefs about students’ abilities and efforts. Finally, Chapter Five returns to the necessity for higher education to center critical being in order to equip students to be well-informed agents of social change. By bringing together the results of the three studies, this chapter also considers the implications of higher education for critical being, offers self-reflection on the implementation of critical quantitative approaches, and looks forward in making recommendations for future research.

In today’s information age, technological advances in virtually every industry allow organizations, both big and small, to create and store more data than ever before. Though data are highly abundant, they are still often underutilized resources with regard to improving organizational performance. The popularity and intrigue around big data specifically has opened up new opportunities to study how organizations embrace evidence and use it to improve their business. Generally, the focus of big data has mainly been on specific technologies, techniques, or its use in everyday life; however, what has been critically missing from the conversation is the consideration of culture and climate to support effective data use in organizations. Currently, many organizations want to develop a data-embracing climate or create changes to make their existing climates more data-informed. The purpose of this project was to develop a scale to assess the current state of data usage in organizations, which can be used to help organizations measure how well they manage, share, and use data to make informed decisions. I defined the phenomena of a data-embracing climate based on reviewing a broad range of business, computer science, and industrial-organizational psychology literature. Using this definition, I developed a scale to measure this newly defined construct by first conducting an exploratory factor analysis, then an item retranslation task, and finally a confirmatory factor analysis. This research provides support for the reliability and validity of the Albrecht Data-Embracing Climate Scale (ADEC); however, the future of this new area of research could benefit by replicating the results of this study and gaining support for the new construct. Implications for science and practice are discussed. I sought to make a valuable contribution to the field of I-O psychology and to make a useful instrument for researchers and practitioners in multiple and diverse fields. I hope others will benefit from this scale to measure how organizations use evidence from data to make informed decisions and gain a competitive advantage beyond intuition alone. Do not cite without express permission from the author.

The objectives of this study were to: 1) create a measure of PBRN clinician member individual performance; 2) produce a rich description of PBRN directors' leadership behaviors and styles; and, 3) identify significant relationships between PBRN director leadership-PBRN clinician member performance. A sequential, exploratory mixed methods design was used to interview and survey PBRN directors and non-director participants. In Phase I, a semi-structured interview guide was used to identify PBRN director leadership behaviors, PBRN non-director performance behaviors and expectations, and decision making activities. A clinician member performance measure was created using a validated behavioral item extraction method. A thematic analysis was conducted on all other data. In Phase II, two quantitative surveys were administered to PBRN directors assessing demographics, membership activity, PBRN productivity, and clinician member performance. One survey was administered to PBRN clinician members assessing their demographics, activity level, and their perceptions of PBRN leadership behaviors. Clinician member performance within PBRNs is a multidimensional construct distinct from participation that is comprised of ownership and engagement aspects, although there is some evidence of a further division into leadership, awareness, follow-through, and communication factors. Collaborative leadership was reported as being distributed to all roles in the PBRN, but is primarily inculcated by a collaborative PBRN director. Time and funding were reported as important resources necessary for the completion of PBRN activities, and are increasingly becoming more limited in their availability. PBRNs engage in a variety of projects and other activities carried out and monitored through ongoing collaborative communication and consensus-based decision making efforts. Top-down decision making patterns by PBRNs have negative relationships with measures of productivity. Directive and participative leadership behaviors do not appear to have direct relationship with clinician member performance, but years of involvement in current PBRN does have a positive association. However, further investigation is necessary to replicate these findings in larger samples. Aiding busy clinicians with engagement through use of central staff may be beneficial. PBRN directors should focus on strengthening collaborative culture of their PBRN and minimizing barriers to effective communication and decision making.

Eating disorders are alarmingly prevalent and potentially lethal. The proper assessment of eating disorder symptoms is therefore crucial for the early identification and treatment of those suffering from these serious illnesses. Current measures of eating disorder symptoms are either very narrow in scope (e.g., assess only one aspect of disordered eating, such as bingeing) and/or have one or more serious limitations, such as inconsistent factor structures and/or poor discriminant validity. Because several of the existing measures of eating disorders were created over 20 years ago, many of these limitations are the direct result of out-dated scale development methods and testing.The goal this study was to determine the structure underlying the symptoms of eating disorders and develop a multidimensional measure of eating pathology based on this structure. To accomplish this goal, an initial item pool was developed to assess 20 dimensions of eating pathology. The initial item pool of 160 items was administered to a student sample (N=433) and community sample(N=407) to determine the preliminary structure of the measure using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The revised measure was then administered to independent samples of psychiatric patients (N=190) and students (N=227). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed a 7-factor structure that showed excellent convergent and discriminant validity. The final measure was also internally consistent (median coefficient alphas ranged from .84-.89) and reliable over a two- to four-week period (r's ranged from .70-.84). The current study represents one of, perhaps, the most comprehensive scale development project ever conducted in the field of eating disorders and is expected to improve future basic and treatment research focused on eating disorders.

The Perceptions of Politics Scale (POPS) that the researchers use to measure organizational politics vary greatly among different scholars of different countries. Even the inventors, (Kacmer & Ferris) themselves were inconsistent in using the measurement scales. Therefore, the motive and purpose of this study were to construct generalizability, confirmation, validity scale, the predictive relations between the perceptions of organizational politics and job stress, effect of the cross-sample and cross-circumstance so as to apply the model to other sampling population, hoping to faithfully reflecting the variables observed in them. This study used the scale of 26 items collected by Dr. Ho Chin-ming et al. using the statistics of 2002 and 2003 measured among 36 organizations of 9 industries in Taiwan. A total of 6,143 questionnaires (return rate of 63.44%) were used. Up to 82.9% of the valid questionnaires were adopted in the final analysis. The data were analyzed by applying statistical methods, including item analysis, reliability (Cronbach¡¦s £\), consistency corrected item-total correlation, alpha if item deleted and exploratory factor analysis for data-reduction. The structural model for POPS was empirically derived and developed. Model development strategy was used to choose the best from four measurement models, all 25 items mapping to one factor (perceptions of organizational politics), five factors retained, three factors retained (19 items), four factor retained (17 items). All were competing models. One measurement model was job stress. First order of hybrid model and second order of hybrid model forecast relationship between the perceptions of organizational politics and job stress. The result of hybrid model factors produced the most parsimonious set of items of acceptable reliability as the best model chosen. Models needed to follow, model specification, parameter estimates ( factors were analyzed and mean values for each item across the factors were calculated ), model identification, t-rule and overall model-fit (e.g., absolute fit indexes: £q2, df, GFI, SRMR, RMSEA & ECVI; relative fit indexes: NFI, NNFI, CFI, IFI & RFI; parsimonious fit indexes: PNFI, PGFI, AIC, CN & Normed £q2) using the available LISREL indicators. The result of using discriminating validity measure ¡¨supervisor behavior¡¨ and ¡§coworker and clique behavior¡¨ indicates that they are different constructs. Criterion-related validity measure is also distinct form criterion. Discriminate validity measures three factor and four factor model which are unidimension. The chi-square difference test comparison of three and four factor model is significant. Indicators of AIC, ECVI, CAIC and double cross-validation indicate the first order hybrid model is the best model chosen by the study. Loose replication strategy and tight replication strategy of cross-validation indicate model effect of the cross-sample and cross-circumstance and extension to other sampling population.

Job Satisfaction of employees is the most important topic in organization today. There are many scles to measure the degree of employees¡¦ satisfaction. But it also has some problems. To resolve these issues, the study uses item analysis and factor analysis to reconstruct a new job satisfaction scale with 6 subscales and 33 items. Finally the study uses structural equation modeling (SEM) to confirm the new scale. The findings indicate that the six subscales and 33 items job satisfaction scale is a reasonable and an accurate measurement model. The scale includes ¡§Job Achievement¡¨, ¡§Payroll Satisfation¡¨, ¡§Supervision Satisfaction¡¨, ¡§Job Support¡¨, ¡§Coworkers Satisfaction¡¨, and ¡§Promotion Satisfaction¡¨. The study wishes that the reconstruction of Job Satisfaction Scale can be a useful tool in Taiwan.

Abstract Employing and exploiting his specialist are the most important for live. From view of economy¡Bsociality¡Bfamily and disabled people ,vocational rehabilitation is very important job. How to promote to let disabled people have ability to work, and to help them in job market,which is important thing in handicapped weal policy. This research¡¦s aim to know question for disabled people who intent to work in job market,and to discuss how to promote their work intention. This research synthesized a theory model for disabled people who intent to work, and provided a real intention to work construct for physically disability,and developed seven constructs for disabled people who intent to work. This research sampled from 303 physically disabilities and 207 non-disabled people in Kaohsiung, result as following: 1.Showing current employment statistics for disabled people in Kaohsiung 2.Physically disabilities are higher than non-disabled people in striving motivation,but are less work-intetion willing. 3. Physically disabilities are less than non-disabled people in striving motivation and intenting to wok. 4. Philosophy of job, handicapped life subsidy, cognizance of government policy are three major influent factors for physically disabilities who intent to work, family cares and interactives, predicated co-work construct are relative second influent factors.

The literature on status, product symbolism, product involvement, and reference group influence is reviewed to conceptually define the Product Symbolic Status construct. The research consisted of two studies (N = 524) that examined 17 different product types to develop and validate the Product Symbolic Status (PSS) scale. The PSS scale is comprised of four facets: self-concept, impression management, lifestyle, and social visibility. The PSS scale consists of nine items which produced an average reliability of α = .90 and showed evidence of convergent and discriminant validity in MTMM analyses with the constructs of product value-expressiveness, product involvement, and product exclusivity/luxury. The PSS scale can also be used for brand symbolic status research. The marketing and advertising research implications are discussed.