James R. Lackritz

RESEARCH: "Intrinsic Religious Orientation Among Minorities in the United States: A Research Note"

We developed and tested a refined version of the intrinsic religious orientation (IRO) component of the Religious Orientation Scale (ROS) using a lay sample of 4 minority ethnic groups (African Americans, Asian Americans, Filipinos, and Latinos) that are collectively now an increasing proportion of the population of the United States. We explored whether IRO is affected by ethnicity, religious affiliation, and gender, and also whether levels of IRO have implications for psychological acculturation of minority groups into White, Anglo American culture and alienation from society. Ethnicity, religious affiliation, and gender explained 41% of the variation of IRO. Relative to Asian Americans, African Americans and Filipinos were more likely to be intrinsically religious. In comparison to those who had no religious preference, Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Evangelical Christians were more likely to be intrinsically religious. Women showed a higher level of IRO than did men. IRO, in turn, was negatively correlated with psychological acculturation and positively correlated with alienation. The negative correlation between IRO and psychological acculturation held true for Asian Americans and African Americans, and the positive correlation between IRO and alienation applied to Asian Americans.

Peer Evaluation in the Classroom: A Check for Sex and Race/Ethnicity Effects

Abstract Using a sample of 221 undergraduate students enrolled in human resource management courses taught in a business school, this study checked for sex and race/ethnicity effects in peer ratings of classroom presentations. Student age and student presenter frequency of participation in the classroom were the control variables. Our primary goal was to find out whether peer ratings were susceptible to the same-group preference bias. Results showed no consistent tendency by students to favor student presenters from their own groups. Frequency of participation by presenters in classroom discussions turned out to be a better predictor of student ratings of presentations by peers than any of the other factors studied.

Work Group Collectivism and the Centrality of Work A Multinational Investigation

This study examined relationships at the individual level of analysis between work group collectivism and work centrality and pride in work, and the moderating effects of nations on these relationships. Participants from Ecuador, Germany, India, Mexico, and the United States completed questionnaire measures of the constructs of interest. Multiple-groups confirmatory factor analyses were performed to evaluate and control for psychometric nonequivalence in the measurement of latent constructs, prior to multiple-groups structural equation modeling analyses of the relationships between work group collectivism and work centrality and pride in work. Results showed positive relationships between collectivism and work centrality and work pride in each country, and non-significant differences between countries in these relationships. Tests of mean differences at the nation level of analysis also showed somewhat higher work centrality and pride in work among countries that scored higher in work group collectivism.

Equal Opportunity in the Classroom: Test Construction in a Diversity-Sensitive Environment

Although civil rights groups have successfully challenged the fairness of tests used in admission decisions by universities from an equal opportunity perspective, testing practices used by professors in the classroom have gone largely unquestioned. In this study, levels of performance of a sample of 231 students in six human resource management classes were compared on two multiple-choice tests and one essay test. Comparisons of scores between men and women and between Whites and minorities over the multiple-choice tests yielded statistically insignificant results. In the essay test comparisons, females scored significantly higher than males, and Whites scored significantly higher than minority students. Implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions are offered for test construction to meet the diversity challenge in the classroom.

Neutral Responses to Structured Questionnaires within Organizational Settings: Roles of Rater Affective Feelings and Demographic Characteristics.

This study is a follow-up to a prior publication by the authors dealing with influences behind neutral responses to structured questionnaires. The earlier study found rater affective feelings, nationality, and age to be significant influences, while sex was not. The questionnaire used in the first study dealt primarily with supervision and relied on a three-point scale. The present instrument covers a broader range of topics and uses a five-point Likert-type scale. The results on the influence of rater affective feelings are consistent with previous studies, but there is some variation in the demographic influences. Implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions are offered for additional research.

Asymptotic properties of estimators derived from line transect sampling

Line transect sampling of two-dimensional figures generates information for the estimation of areal fractions and boundary length per unit area. The individual estimators are unbiased and variance approximations for the estimators are developed, based on the information available from a single line transect. The asymptotic distributions of the estimators are developed under general modeling conditions and extend the results currently available in the literature. Some numerical examples are given.

Personality Differences across Borders: A Comparison of Student Samples from Mexico and the United States

Since personality plays such a vital role in shaping the quality of interpersonal relations and achievements of individuals, a vast body of research has accumulated on the subject. Unfortunately, much of this research deals with intracultural issues and samples. This study reports the findings of a crosscultural study of personality differences among student samples in two cities with a common international border: Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego, United States. The samples consist of undergraduate students from a variety of academic disciplines enrolled in colleges within a radius of about fifty miles from the U.S.-Mexican border. Four personality dimensions were investigated by use of established personality scales through a questionnaire: need for autonomy, altruism, self-esteem, and locus of control. Comparisons were made of the Mexican sample with three ethnic groups in the United States: African-American, Mexican-American, and Euro-Americans. The results showed that Mexican subjects exhibited a significantly higher need for autonomy than the other groups. However, the Mexican sample exhibited a significantly lower mean on self-esteem than the African-American and Mexican-American samples. An additional finding of this study, which was not part of the original research concern, showed a negative correlation between overall grade point average (GPA) and number of years spent in the United States by the immigrant students within the United States sample. Implications of these differences for human resource management that transcends borders were discussed.

Variance approximation for volume fraction estimators from areal sampling

Areal sampling of three-dimensional figures generates information for the estimation of volume fractions.The volume fractions estimators are unbiased. and asymptotic variances are developed for the estimators under general modeling conditions This results in a variance approximations based on information from a single planar section. The variance expressions are compared to others developed in the literature under more restrictive modeling conditions. Nunerical examples are given.

Point sampling in areal-fraction analysis

Areal-fraction analysis of two-dimensional structures has been studied over the years through areal, lineal, and point sampling. Unbiased estimators of the areal fractions are veil known. Random point sampling has produced the standard variance approximation used in the literature, but systematic point sam-pling requires a different variance approximation due ta the established dependency from point to point. The adjusted vari- ance is derived under the assumption of a general cell model for the construction of the structure under study. In addition, more specific model assumptions result In the joint asymptotic normal-ity of the estimators which also generates an alternative vari-ance approximation. These variance approximations make use of the available sampling information, so that the usual inferential techniques of interval estimation and hypothesis testing can be employed. Section 9 gives some numerical examples.