Browsing by Subject "Factor Analysis"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Human Cognitive Abilities: The Structure and Predictive Power of Group Factors
    (2019-04) Kostal, Jack
    General mental ability is one of the most powerful and venerable individual differences in I-O psychology. This project consists of two studies that provide comprehensive meta-analytic summaries of inter-correlations between cognitive abilities, and cognitive abilities’ validity for predicting a wide range of job performance criteria. The meta-analytic database created to address these questions consists of 2,356 independent samples from 1,030 separate studies (total N = 2,978,554). Results provide support for a newly developed compendium for classifying cognitive tests, which use would reduce idiosyncratic test classifications that are endemic to the I-O literature. Exploratory factor analyses produced solutions similar to the CHC model, albeit with important exceptions around visual processing, long-term retrieval, and quantitative knowledge. Results did not support age differentiation of cognitive abilities. Turning to validity against job performance criteria, this study found somewhat lower validities than previous work by Hunter and Schmidt. Contrary to previous work, no major differences in validity were observed between fluid and crystallized abilities.
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    Sense of Belonging Scale Development and Viability
    (2021-12) Do, Tai T
    A sense of belonging measure was developed using items from a large survey administered to students in 5th, 8th, 9th, and 11th grade in Minnesota. Validity evidence, via regression analyses, was obtained that supported the interpretation and use of the measure in an adolescent-student sample. Regression results showed that Students of Color, compared to White students, experienced lower levels of sense of belonging. Sense of belonging also appears to be associated with academic engagement and disengagement variables, however, the effects were more prominent for White students than for Students of Color.
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    Teacher Attitudes Toward Evidence-Based Practices: Confirmatory and Predictive Analyses of the School-Adapted Evidence-Based Practice Attitude Scale
    (2021-07) Merle, James
    Educational researchers have developed a host of evidence-based practices (EBPs) to prevent and address social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) problems from emerging and to promote success-enabling factors in school. Despite the availability of EBPs, schools are confronted with an implementation gap that limits the impact of EBPs on student outcomes. Evidence suggests that individual-level characteristics of implementers influence the adoption and delivery of EBPs. One individual-level factor, attitudes toward implementing EBPs (ATE), has garnered significant attention across service sectors linked to implementation. This study provides validity evidence of a school-adapted measure of the Evidence-Based Practice Attitudes Scale (S-EBPAS) among a sample of 441 elementary school teachers across 52 schools. Prior research has indicated that the EBPAS provides a reliable and valid assessment of attitudes toward EBPs, though it has not been validated among a sample of school teachers. The current study sought to confirm whether original EBPAS factor structure holds when adapted and administered for use in schools, as well as gather convergent and divergent validity evidence. Results indicated that, while the initial CFA model did not fit the data, an exploratory factor analysis revealed that a three-factor model fit the sample best, and it may demonstrate stronger alignment with attitude theory than the original EBPAS. Also, the S-EBPAS and its subscales demonstrated a moderate-to-high amount of construct validity evidence, and that the S-EBPAS demonstrated minimal predictive validity evidence with fidelity of implementation across the two different universal EBPs. Implications and future directions for research and practice are discussed.