The logic of semantic differentation; The dimensionality of the semantic space; The semantic differential as a measuring instrument; Evaluation of the semantic differential; Attitude measurement and the principle of congruity; Semantic measurement in personality and psychotherapy research; Semantic measurement in communications research.
Explores the archaeological evidence for the development of measuring activities in numerous ancient societies and the implications of these discoveries.
What are the current trends in housing? Is my planned project commercially viable? What should be my marketing and advertisement strategies? These are just some of the questions real estate agents, landlords and developers ask researchers to answer. But to find the answers, researchers are faced with a wide variety of methods that measure housing preferences and choices. To select and value a valid research method, one needs a well-structured overview of the methods that are used in housing preference and housing choice research. This comprehensive introduction to this field offers just such an overview. It discusses and compares numerous methods, detailing the potential limitation of each one, and it reaches beyond methodology, illustrating how thoughtful consideration of methods and techniques in research can help researchers and other professionals to deliver products and services that are more in line with residents’ needs.
The Meaning of Dwelling Features. Conceptual and Methodological Issues relates the research areas of housing preferences and the meaning of a dwelling with each other and with aspects of the means-end approach as applied in marketing research. It results in a conceptual and methodological framework for studying the meaning of preferences for dwelling features. These features are viewed as functional for achieving the goals and values that people pursue. The meaning of dwelling features lies in these functional relationships. The model presented in this study therefore relates preferences for the features of a dwelling to the meaning they have for people. These relationships are called meaning structures. Meaning structures are measured by a semi-structured interviewing technique, which is an adapted version of the laddering technique for measuring means-end chains, and network methods are used for the representation and analysis of these meaning structures.
A definitive, authoritative and up-to-date resource for anyone interested in the theories, models and assessment methods used for understanding the many factes of Human personality and individual differences This brand new Handbook of Personality Theory and Assessment 2-Volume Set constitutes an essential resource for shaping the future of the scientific foundation of personality research, measurement, and practice. There is need for an up-to-date and international Handbook that reviews the major contemporary personality models Vol. 1 and associated psychometric measurement instruments Vol. 2 that underpin the scientific study of this important area of individual differences psychology, and in these two Handbooks this is very much achieved. Made unique by its depth and breadth the Handbooks are internationally edited and authored by Professors Gregory J. Boyle, Gerald Matthews, and Donald H. Saklofske and authored by internationally known academics, this work will be an important reference work for a host of researchers and practitioners in the fields of individual differences and personality assessment, clinical psychology, educational psychology, work and organizational psychology, health psychology and other applied fields as well. Volume 2: Personality Measurement and Assessment. Covers psychometric measurement of personality and has coverage of the following broad topics, listed by section heading: " General Methodological Issues " Multidimensional Personality Instruments " Assessment of Biologically-Based Traits " Assessment of Self-Regulative Traits " Implicit, Projective And Objective Measures Of Personality " Abnormal Personality Trait Instruments " Applications of Psychological Testing
Understanding Research in Clinical and Counseling Psychology is a unique text because it is designed and written for the graduate students aspiring to careers in practice rather than in psychological science who are the vast majority in clinical and counseling programs. To motivate readers to see the value of knowledge produced by research, the book opens with an actual case report that shows how research-generated strategies incorporated into treatment allowed a woman who formerly would have been considered so hopelessly incapacitated by obsessive-compulsive disorder as to require lifetime institutionalization if not neurosurgery to return to normal family and work life. The first set of chapters introduces fundamental concepts of measurement, sampling, and validity. The next set systematically presents the kinds of investigations most relevant to budding practitioners--group comparisons, correlations, single-subject designs, program evaluations, and meta-analyses. Each of these chapters concludes with a detailed example of a study in which students can see how the techniques described are actually employed. The third set addresses enduring concerns--how to define and maintain ethical standards, how to do effective literature reviews and assess the quality of existing data, and how to collect and analyze data. It also addresses concerns that have emerged recently--how to distinguish and judge effective and efficacious treatments and how to contribute to research efforts as a private practitioner. The issues involved in the often confusing effectiveness versus efficacy debate are illuminated with a clinically relevant case example. Descriptions of alternatives to conventional significance testing, such as "clinical significance" and "reliable change analyses" help students consider new ways in which they can impose rigor on their own research and practice activities. Two final chapters examine the challenges of studying two special groups: children and older adults. Throughout, the authors, all capable researchers who are also experienced practitioners, demonstrate the ways in which research is an essential foundation for effective and ethical practice. Students and instructors alike will welcome this reader-friendly book.
Breast cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers and a leading cause of death for women worldwide. With advances in molecular engineering in the 1980s, hopes began to rise that a non-toxic and non-invasive treatment for breast cancer could be developed. These hopes were stoked by the researchers, biotech companies, and analysts who worked to make sense of the uncertainties during product development. In Making Sense Sophie Mützel traces this emergence of "innovative breast cancer therapeutics" from the late 1980s up to 2010, through the lens of the narratives of the involved actors. Combining theories of economic and cultural sociology, Mützel shows how stories are integral for the emergence of new markets; stories of the future create a market of expectations prior to any existing products; stories also help to create categories on what such a new market and its products are about. Making Sense uses thousands of press statements, media reports, scientific reports, and financial and industry analyses, and combines qualitative and large-scale computational text analyses, to illustrate these mechanisms, presenting a fresh view of how life-prolonging innovations can be turned into market products.
This is the first handbook focussing on classical social theory. It offers extensive discussions of debates, arguments, and discussions in classical theory and how they have informed contemporary sociological theory. The book pushes against the conventional classical theory pedagogy, which often focused on single theorists and their contributions, and looks at isolating themes capturing the essence of the interest of classical theorists that seem to have relevance to modern research questions and theoretical traditions. This book presents new approaches to thinking about theory in relationship to sociological methods.
This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the theory and practice of diagnostic classification models (DCMs), which are useful for statistically driven diagnostic decision making. DCMs can be employed in a wide range of disciplines, including educational assessment and clinical psychology. For the first time in a single volume, the authors present the key conceptual underpinnings and methodological foundations for applying these models in practice. Specifically, they discuss a unified approach to DCMs, the mathematical structure of DCMs and their relationship to other latent variable models, and the implementation and estimation of DCMs using Mplus. The book's highly accessible language, real-world applications, numerous examples, and clearly annotated equations will encourage professionals and students to explore the utility and statistical properties of DCMs in their own projects. This book will appeal to professionals in the testing industry; professors and students in educational, school, clinical, and cognitive psychology. It will also serve as a useful text in doctoral-level courses in diagnostic testing, cognitive diagnostic assessment, test validity, diagnostic assessment, advanced educational measurement, psychometrics, and item response theory
