Objective and bias-free measures of candidate motivation during job applications
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Kappen M
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8578383 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Walking aids are widely used by older adults, however, alarmingly, their use has been linked to increased falls-risk, yet clinicians have no objective way of assessing user stability. This work aims to demonstrate the application of a novel methodology to investigate how the type of walking task, the amount of body weight supported by the device (i.e., device loading), and task performance strategy affect stability of rollator users. In this context, ten users performed six walking tasks with an instrumented rollator. The combined stability margin "SM" was calculated, which considers user and rollator as a combined system. A Friedman Test was used to investigate the effects of task on SM and a least-squares regression model was applied to investigate the relationship between device loading and SM. In addition, the effects of task performance strategy on SM were explored. As a result, it was found that: the minimum SM for straight line walking was higher than for more complex tasks (p<0.05); an increase in device loading was associated with an increase in SM (p<0.05); stepping up a kerb with at least 1 rollator wheel in ground contact at all times resulted in higher SM than lifting all four wheels simultaneously. Hence, we conclude that training should not be limited to straight line walking but should include various everyday tasks. Within person, SM informs on which tasks need practicing, and which strategy facilitates stability, thereby enabling person-specific guidance/training. The relevance of this work lies in an increase in walking aid users, and the costs arising from fall-related injuries.
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Project description:OBJECTIVE:Patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (FM) complain of inadequate sleep, which could contribute to common symptoms including sleepiness, fatigue, or pain. However, measures that consistently and objectively distinguish FM patients remain elusive. METHODS:Fifteen women with FM and 15 age- and gender-matched controls underwent 3 nights of polysomnography; Multiple Sleep Latency Tests to assess sleepiness; testing of auditory arousal thresholds during non-REM stage 2 and stage 4 sleep; overnight assessment of urinary free cortisol; and analysis of 24-hour heart rate variability. RESULTS:On the second night of polysomnography, women with FM in comparison to controls showed more stage shifts (p = 0.04) but did not differ significantly on any other standard polysomnographic measure or on the Multiple Sleep Latency Tests. Alpha EEG power during deep non-REM sleep, alone or as a proportion of alpha power during remaining sleep stages, also failed to distinguish the groups, as did auditory arousal thresholds. Urinary free cortisol did not differ between FM and control subjects in a consistent manner. However, decreased short-term heart rate variability (HRV) and especially ratio-based HRV among FM subjects suggested diminished parasympathetic and increased sympathetic activity, respectively. Other HRV measures suggested decreased complexity of HRV among the FM subjects. CONCLUSION:Standard measures of sleep, a gold-standard measure of sleepiness, quantified alpha-delta EEG power, auditory arousal thresholds, and urinary free cortisol largely failed to distinguish FM and control subjects. However, HRV analyses showed more promise, as they suggested both increased sympathetic activity and decreased complexity of autonomic nervous system function in FM.
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Project description:Parents of anxious children are thought to be more attuned to threat, which might translate into less positive bias in parental report of child coping and ability, unlike parents of non-anxious children. Maternal expectancy bias was examined in a sample of 43 clinically anxious (51 % female), 30 clinically anxious/depressed (50 % female), and 44 non-clinical control children (46 % female), 8-14 years of age. When compared to an objective observer's ratings of the children, mothers of non-clinical children demonstrated a positive bias (i.e., over-rated their children's performance) for both ratings of expected speech performance in absolute terms and relative to peers. Mothers in the clinical groups did not exhibit this positive expectancy bias. Moreover, mothers of clinical children reported lower expectations in absolute terms and relative to peers than mothers of non-clinical children. The data suggest that mothers of clinical children held accurate expectations for child performance when compared to the gold standard of an objective observer.
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Project description:Advances in wearable technology allow for the objective assessment of motor performance in both in-home and in-clinic environments and were used to explore motor impairments in Parkinson's disease (PD). The aims of this study were to: 1) assess differences between in-clinic and in-home gait speed, and sit-to-stand and stand-to-sit duration in PD patients (in comparison with healthy controls); and 2) determine the objective physical activity measures, including gait, postural balance, instrumented Timed-up-and-go (iTUG), and in-home spontaneous physical activity (SPA), with the highest correlation with subjective/semi-objective measures, including health survey, fall history (fallers vs. non-fallers), fear of falling, pain, Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale, and PD stage (Hoehn and Yahr). Objective assessments of motor performance were made by measuring physical activities in the same sample of PD patients (n = 15, Age: 71.2±6.3 years) and age-matched healthy controls (n = 35, Age: 71.9±3.8 years). The association between in-clinic and in-home parameters, and between objective parameters and subjective/semi-objective evaluations in the PD group was assessed using linear regression-analysis of variance models and reported as Pearson correlations (R). Both in-home SPA and in-clinic assessments demonstrated strong discriminatory power in detecting impaired motor function in PD. However, mean effect size (0.94±0.37) for in-home measures was smaller compared to in-clinic assessments (1.30±0.34) for parameters that were significantly different between PD and healthy groups. No significant correlation was observed between identical in-clinic and in-home parameters in the PD group (R = 0.10-0.25; p>0.40), while the healthy showed stronger correlation in gait speed, sit-to-stand duration, and stand-to-sit duration (R = 0.36-0.56; p<0.03). This suggests a better correlation between supervised and unsupervised motor function assessments in healthy controls compared to PD group. In the PD group, parameters related to velocity and range-of-motion of lower extremity within gait assessment (R = 0.58-0.84), and turning duration and velocity within iTUG test (R = 0.62-0.77) demonstrated strong correlations with PD stage (p<0.01).
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Project description:PurposeThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic required a shift to electronic devices for education and entertainment, with children more confined to home, which may affect eye growth and myopia. Our goal was to assess behaviors during COVID-19 in myopic and non-myopic children.MethodsParents completed a questionnaire for their children (ages 8.3 ± 2.4 years, n = 53) regarding visual activity in summer 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as during school time and the summer before COVID-19. Children also wore an Actiwatch for 10 days in summer 2020 for objective measures of light exposure, activity, and sleep. Data were analyzed with repeated-measures analysis of variance.ResultsSubjective measures showed that during COVID-19, children exhibited increased electronic device use and decreased activity and time outdoors (P < 0.05 for all), while time spent doing near work was not different than during a typical school or summer session before COVID-19 (P > 0.05). Objective measures during COVID-19 showed that myopic children exhibited lower daily light exposure (P = 0.04) and less activity (P = 0.04) than non-myopic children.ConclusionsChildren demonstrated increased electronic device use and decreased activity and time outdoors during COVID-19, with myopic children exhibiting lower light exposure and activity than non-myopes. Long-term follow-up is needed to understand if these behavioral changes ultimately contribute to myopia progression.Translational relevanceChildren's behaviors changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have implications in eye growth and myopia.
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Project description:This study uses latent semantic analysis (LSA) to explore how prevalent measures of motivation are interpreted across very diverse job types. Building on the Semantic Theory of Survey Response (STSR), we calculate “semantic compliance” as the degree to which an individual’s responses follow a semantically predictable pattern. This allows us to examine how context, in the form of job type, influences respondent interpretations of items. In total, 399 respondents from 18 widely different job types (from CEOs through lawyers, priests and artists to sex workers and professional soldiers) self-rated their work motivation on eight commonly applied scales from research on motivation. A second sample served as an external evaluation panel (n = 30) and rated the 18 job types across eight job characteristics. Independent measures of the job types’ salary levels were obtained from national statistics. The findings indicate that while job type predicts motivational score levels significantly, semantic compliance as moderated by job type job also predicts motivational score levels usually at a lesser but significant magnitude. Combined, semantic compliance and job type explained up to 41% of the differences in motional score levels. The variation in semantic compliance was also significantly related to job characteristics as rated by an external panel, and to national income levels. Our findings indicate that people in different contexts interpret items differently to a degree that substantially affects their score levels. We discuss how future measurements of motivation may improve by taking semantic compliance and the STSR perspective into consideration.
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Project description:Research on the role of public service motivation (PSM) relating to work performance has been a significant topic in recent years; however, the relationship between PSM and job performance remains mixed. To investigate whether job attitudes mediate the effect of PSM on public employees' turnover intention, this study integrated job satisfaction and organizational commitment into a single model. Based on a sample of 587 full-time Chinese public employees, our findings revealed that job satisfaction and organizational commitment, respectively, mediated the negative association between PSM and employees' turnover intention. Multiple mediation analysis indicated that job satisfaction and organizational commitment sequentially mediated the effects of PSM on turnover intention. As a result, our findings suggested that public employees with high PSM levels preferred to stay in the public organizations. The theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.
| S-EPMC7325603 | biostudies-literature