Joan Manuel Batista-Foguet

Análisis factorial confirmatorio. Su utilidad en la validación de cuestionarios relacionados con la salud

Researchers who use questionnaires in the health sciences tacitly base themselves (often inadvertently) in Classical Test Theory, the suppositions of which are unrealistic and frequently violated, leading to defective evaluation of the reliability and validity of the instrument.The present article emphasizes the need for precise definition of essential terms of measurement (reliability and validity) by clarifying the deficiencies that traditional methodology incurs in their use. The limitations of evaluation of reliability through Chronbachs alpha and laxity in quantitative evaluation of validity through exploratory factor analysis are described. As an alternative, a sequential and integrated approach to validity and reliability within the framework of confirmatory factor analysis models is proposed. These models provide the appropriate statistical framework to evaluate the validity and reliability of each item, instead of carrying out overall evaluations only. The confirmatory approach guides researchers to optimize the process of designing or adapting a questionnaire, freeing them from the largely unfounded ritual laid down by classical methodology.

Life Domain Satisfactions as Predictors of Overall Life Satisfaction Among Workers: Evidence from Chile

This article examines the subjective antecedents of life satisfaction of workers. Adopting a ‘bottom-up’ perspective, we assessed the unique influence that satisfaction with multiple life domains have on evaluative judgments of overall life satisfaction. Based on a nationwide sample of 530 Chilean workers, we simultaneously tested the effects of seven life domain satisfactions that have been consistently included in extant models of life satisfaction and subjective well-being. These were satisfaction with health, financial situation, social relationships, one’s self-worth, leisure-time, family, and work. Having controlled for age and gender, results showed that satisfaction with one’s financial situation was the dominant predictor of overall life satisfaction of workers, with a weight of .36. Satisfaction with family, work, and health had effects of .25, .14, and .14, respectively. Interestingly, satisfaction with one’s self-worth, leisure-time, and social relationships did not have statistically significant effects on life satisfaction, although the first two showed t values near the critical value.

Alcohol use and abuse in adolescence: proposal of an alternative analysis

BACKGROUND A national, representative, school-based sample of Portuguese youths was used to examine the prevalence of alcohol use in this population and to analyse differences between demographic variables such as gender and age, as well as to propose a statistical procedure that optimally quantifies categorical variables. METHODS Data on 6109 state school students from Portugal, in the 6th, 8th and 10th grades, aged 11-18, who participated in the 2002 (Health Behaviour in School-aged Children/WHO) survey of adolescent health, were analysed. Adolescents aged between 11 and 14 were placed in the younger group, and those 15-18 years old were placed in the older group. Optimal scaling was used to optimize the computation of factor scores, which were subsequently submitted to multiple regression analysis in order to analyse the impact of gender and age on alcohol use. RESULTS The results of this study show that the majority of Portuguese school-aged adolescents attending regular school at 6th, 8th and 10th grades do not drink alcoholic beverages (beer, wine or spirits) on a regular basis (at least once a month). However, about 8% of these adolescents do drink beer, 3% do drink wine and 12% do drink spirits on a regular basis. With regard to age and gender, about a quarter of the older boys stated that they drink beer or spirits regularly. The multiple regression analysis showed that age and gender had a significant impact on alcohol use. CONCLUSION Alcohol - in particular spirits - is a substance used by some Portuguese adolescents. Alcohol use and abuse is more frequent in boys and increases with age. The importance of these findings for health promotion strategies is discussed.

EI competencies as a related but different characteristic than intelligence

Amid the swarm of debate about emotional intelligence (EI) among academics are claims that cognitive intelligence, or general mental ability (g), is a stronger predictor of life and work outcomes as well as the counter claims that EI is their strongest predictor. Nested within the tempest in a teapot are scientific questions as to what the relationship is between g and EI. Using a behavioral approach to EI, we examined the relationship of a parametric measure of g as the person’s GMAT scores and collected observations from others who live and work with the person as to the frequency of his or her EI behavior, as well as the person’s self-assessment. The results show that EI, as seen by others, is slightly related to g, especially for males with assessment from professional relations. Further, we found that cognitive competencies are more strongly related to GMAT than EI competencies. For observations from personal relationships or self-assessment, there is no relationship between EI and GMAT. Observations from professional relations reveal a positive relationship between cognitive competencies and GMAT and EI and GMAT for males, but a negative relationship between EI and GMAT for females.

Parent-child Perceptions of Quality of Life: Implications for Health Intervention

Abstract The KIDSCREEN-52 is an instrument that assesses 10 dimensions of health-related quality of life (HRQoL). It was developed as a result of studies by the European KIDSCREEN Group, University of Berlin (www.kidscreen.org; see also Bisegger et al., 2005). During the Portuguese validation process, a model was developed to examine the perceptions of children and their parents on these dimensions. Structural equation modelling was used in order to estimate the fit of this model, in both cases according to gender and age. The specific aim of the present study was to examine the extent to which results differ by gender and age. An additional aim was to explore differences between the child and parent versions of the instrument, globally as well as by gender and age of the children. The results are based on a nationally representative sample of 3195 children from 5th and 7th grades. Data from each child were paired with data from their parents (2256 matched sets of data were generated). Most of the subscales exhibited good internal consistency in both the children’s and parent’s versions of KIDSCREEN-52, with values of the alpha coefficient approaching or above .80 for most scales. The exception was the subscale concerned with self-perception where the coefficient was approximately .64 for both children and parents. Subscale scores for children’s and parents’ versions correlated moderately strongly in the sample of matched pairs. This indicates that children and their parents view their health-related quality of life consistently, although parents tend to perceive their children’s quality of life as better than their children do. Analysis of variance suggested that there were small differences in scores associated with gender and age. The results confirm that the KIDSCREEN-52 questionnaire is a relevant instrument to estimate the perception of quality of life both in children and their parents. The findings that parents are not totally aware of their children’s subjective health-related quality of life perceptions and that parents have different perceptions according to the gender and the age of their children, have implications for professional practice and intervention with families of school-aged children.

University entrepreneurship centres as service businesses

In recent years, many universities have created entrepreneurship centres which offer a set of services to students, educators and professionals in order to promote entrepreneurial attitudes. The first part of this work focuses on describing a university entrepreneurship programme as a service business. The second part summarises the results of the empirical study, based on the Student Evaluation of Educational Quality (SEEQ) questionnaire administered to 106 students at the Technical University of Catalonia in Spain who attended the entrepreneurship courses offered by the Innova Programme entrepreneurship centre.

Design of experimental studies for measurement and evaluation of the determinants of Job Satisfaction

In this paper the authors examine the methodology of data analysis and collection usually applied in Job-Satisfaction studies and more generally in Well-being research. In this field, data is collected through questionnaires and analysed using multivariate statistical techniques, a process which is commonly known as non-experimental research. The article points out some of the problems in this procedure and proposes an alternative experimental methodology which is applied to evaluate Job-Satisfaction over a Dutch random sample. Essentially it consists of the implementation of factorial designs in questionnaire construction. The use of fractional factorials is also discussed.

A new measurement procedure for attitudinal research. Analysis of its psychometric and informational properties

Since measurement errors have strong effects in all relationships (statistical or otherwise) studied, there is an increasing interest in the data quality, which is the major justification for this research.This paper aims to present a new measurement procedure, the letter scale, which avoids many of the problems connected with the response modalities traditionally used in attitudinal research, especially the ordinal categorical scales.This paper analyzes the error composition of the scores obtained with this new measurement procedure. The validity of the procedure is also analyzed and the observed variance is assessed to determine which part of the observed variance is “valid”, which part is random error (attenuating relationships) and which is correlated error (magnifying relationships). Structural equation models will be used to provide estimates of the measurement quality: (i) Reliability, (ii) Construct validity, method effect and residual variance.In addition, this letter scale is evaluated under another different perspective, Information Theory measures are also used to assess the amount of information transmitted.The relative merits of this new measurement procedure as opposed to other common response modalities will be discussed in both cases.

Saúde e felicidade na adolescência: factores individuais e sociais associados às percepções de saúde e de felicidade dos adolescentes portugueses

Perceptions of health and happiness are generally associated. Several personal and social factors influence these perceptions. Since adolescence is a critical period in health chronology it is important to analyze which factors influence the adolescent’s health and well-being. To analyze the relations between health and happiness as well as the factors allied to each of these features, we developed an explanatory model. The data used in this study are part of a cross-national research study Health Behaviours in School-aged Children conducted by the “Social Adventure” team from the Faculty of Human Kinetics in collaboration with the WHO Regional Office for Europe (n=6131). The data were collected through self-completion questionnaires. Descriptive analyses as well as multivariate analyses were conducted, namely structural equations modeling. The results showed a positive relation between the perceptions of health and happiness. It was also possible to verify that there are several personal and social features associated to these perceptions. Personal features have more impact on health perception while social features have more impact on happiness perception. The importance of these findings for the intervention with adolescents is discussed.

An Alternative Approach to Analyze Ipsative Data. Revisiting Experiential Learning Theory.

The ritualistic use of statistical models regardless of the type of data actually available is a common practice across disciplines which we dare to call type zero error. Statistical models involve a series of assumptions whose existence is often neglected altogether, this is specially the case with ipsative data. This paper illustrates the consequences of this ritualistic practice within Kolbs Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) operationalized through its Learning Style Inventory (KLSI). We show how using a well-known methodology in other disciplines—compositional data analysis (CODA) and log ratio transformations—KLSI data can be properly analyzed. In addition, the method has theoretical implications: a third dimension of the KLSI is unveiled providing room for future research. This third dimension describes an individuals relative preference for learning by prehension rather than by transformation. Using a sample of international MBA students, we relate this dimension with another self-assessment instrument, the Philosophical Orientation Questionnaire (POQ), and with an observer-assessed instrument, the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI-U). Both show plausible statistical relationships. An intellectual operating philosophy (IOP) is linked to a preference for prehension, whereas a pragmatic operating philosophy (POP) is linked to transformation. Self-management and social awareness competencies are linked to a learning preference for transforming knowledge, whereas relationship management and cognitive competencies are more related to approaching learning by prehension.