The Berlin Misophonia Questionnaire (BMQ): Development and validation of a symptom-oriented diagnostical instrument for the measurement of misophonia

Misophonia is a syndrome which is characterized by intense emotional and physical reactions to idiosyncratic sounds. However, its psychometric measurement is still in the early stages. The study presents the development of a German self-report instrument, the Berlin Misophonia Questionnaire (BMQ), and integrates contemporary empirical findings and the latest criteria of misophonia. Data of 952 individuals were gathered in an online study. The results of structural analyses, the assessment of internal consistency, and an analysis of the nomological network of misophonic symptoms supported the reliability and validity of the developed scales. Through the presented symptom-oriented modelling approach, every facet of misophonia is clearly and separately measurable. The final BMQ consists of 77 items in 21 scales, which were selected using Ant Colony Optimization algorithms. The study demonstrates several improvements in the measurement of misophonia by providing a multidimensional measurement of misophonic symptoms and therefore stimulates further research.

Performance Expectancy of Officiating Technology in Spector-Based Sport Events: Scale Development and Validation

In an effort to decrease the number of missed calls and to improve officiating during sport events, various sports leagues have implemented media technology (e.g., Video Assistant Referee, Hawk-Eye). More importantly, the use of officiating technology has significantly influenced spectatorship in various ways (e.g., perception of and attitude toward the technology). Although officiating technology is an impressive tool for communicating final decisions to spectators, few scholars have examined how spectators perceive the use of officiating technology, and no psychometric measurement scale exists that measures this perception. To fill this void, we developed and validated the Performance Expectancy of Officiating Technology (PEOT) scale to measure the perceptions of spectators, one of the most important stakeholder groups in the industry. We identified four sub-dimensions of PEOT: fair judgment, enjoyability, efficient game operation, and convenience of review; a multi-dimensional framework that provides a psychometrically sound approach to assessment. The results reveal that PEOT had a positive and direct impact on attitude toward and intention to watch sport events. In addition, attitude partially mediated the relationship between performance expectancy and intention to watch sport events. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

A systematic review of patient-reported outcome measures used to assess sleep in postpartum women using Consensus Based Standards for the Selection of Health Measurement Instruments (COSMIN) guidelines

Study Objectives We performed a systematic review to identify the best patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) of postpartum sleep in women. Methods We searched 4 databases for validated PROMs used to assess postpartum sleep. Studies were considered if they evaluated at least 1 psychometric measurement property of a PROM. An overall rating was assigned for each psychometric measurement property of each PROM based upon COSMIN criteria. A modified GRADE approach was used to assess the level of evidence and recommendations were then made for each PROM. Results We identified 15 validation studies of 8 PROMs, in 9,070 postpartum women. An adequate number of sleep domains was assessed by 5 PROMs: Bergen Insomnia Scale (BIS), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), General Sleep Disturbance Scale (GSDS), Athens Insomnia Scale (AIS) and the Sleep Symptom Checklist (SSC). BIS and GSDS were the only PROMs to demonstrate adequate content validity and at least a low level of evidence of sufficient internal consistency, resulting in Class A recommendations. The BIS was the only PROM, which is easily accessible and free to use for non-commercial research, that achieved a Class A recommendation. Conclusion The BIS is the best currently available PROM of postpartum sleep. However, this PROM fails to assess several important domains such as sleep duration (and efficiency), chronotype, sleep-disordered breathing and medication usage. Future studies should focus on evaluating the psychometric measurement properties of BIS in the North American setting and in different cultural groups, or to develop a more specific PROM of postpartum sleep.

Education [Bildung]–Literality–Competence: On Competing Tasks of Public Schools and the Need for New Links Between Teaching and Educational Research

Purpose: The article distinguishes between the three concepts of standardization of the tasks of pedagogical action in modern educational systems: - the traditional concept of standardizing educational goals through curricula, - the literacy concept of psychometric standardization, - and the concept of competence, which can be developed in different ways. Design/Approach/Methods: I examine these concepts and show, - that traditional curriculum orientations suffer from the fact that they have not developed controls over the achievement of objectives, - that literacy concept allows for psychometric measurement, but this is not coordinated with the actual teaching and its goals, - and that competence models only offer further possibilities if their subject-specific requirements are aligned with the educational theoretical and didactic teaching objectives. Findings: Instead of replacing traditional input control with output measurements, it is important to link teaching and educational research in such a way that competence measurements not only measure the levels of demands achieved by learners but also the quality and effectiveness of teaching. Originality/Value: The train of thought overcomes the juxtaposition of philosophy of education and empirical research and shows how both can cooperate theoretically and empirically.

Coda: Creativity in psychological research versus in linguistics – Same but different?

Understanding the very nature of creativity is a hot topic in research across various disciplines and has profound societal relevance. In this contribution, we discuss verbal creativity by highlighting its definition, psychometric measurement, and relations with other personality dispositions. We relate psychological research with findings from linguistics presented in this issue and depict similarities and differences between both approaches. More specifically, we relate the linguistic terminology of F-creativity to fluency and flexibility, whereas we identify E-creativity as akin to originality. We propose latent semantic analysis as a possible approach for evaluating originality and compare this approach with more commonly applied human ratings. Based on contributions in this issue, we discuss creativity as a domain-general process that is (e. g., in applied arts) often driven by the recombination of mental elements. Lastly, we propose several intelligence and personality dispositions as determinants of individual differences in creativity. We conclude that creativity research in linguistic and psychology has many communalities and interdisciplinary work bears strong promises for the future.

New tools for assessing information literacy

There is a need for short and easily administered measures for assessing students’ levels of information literacy, as currently existing measures are long and cumbersome. We have therefore created a suite of tools, the “Tromsø Information Literacy Suite” (TROILS), for information literacy assessment. This suite of tools is freely available on an open platform for others to both use, adapt, and supplement. In this presentation, we introduce four TROILS assessment tools: 1. a survey for assessing students’ knowledge of key aspects of information literacy 2. a survey for measuring how interested students are in being/becoming information literate individuals 3. an annotated bibliography for assessing students’ abilities to critically evaluate information sources 4. a rubric for assessing students’ use of sources in their written work Together, these tools measure what students know, feel, and do regarding key facets of information literacy. We will discuss the tools’ development and present preliminary results of tests with students in higher education in Norway. Both surveys were developed using procedures intended to ensure acceptable psychometric measurement properties. These included expert consultation for content validity, student think-aloud-protocols for readability, item selection based on a pilot sample, exploratory factor analysis, estimates of reliability and criterion validity. The final surveys were deployed during the fall semester and will be used longitudinally to measure students’ progress over three years. Results from the annotated bibliography (source evaluation) and the rubric (source documentation) were compared with survey results to see whether what the students actually do in their coursework correlates with what they know, based on the survey.