Developing and Testing a Model of Dynamic Changes in Work-School Conflict and Workplace Deviance Over Time.

Work-school conflict is a major stressor for many college students who have paid jobs while in college. Although work-school conflict experience is dynamic, the extant research has predominantly cast it and its consequences as between-person phenomena from a static perspective, ignoring its inherent temporal nature. As a result, little is known about the intra-individual changes in work-school conflict and their associated consequences as implied by the related theory. Drawing on the stressor-emotion model of counterproductive work behavior, we conducted a longitudinal weekly diary study to examine how work-school conflict change can predict changes in negative emotions and workplace deviance (i.e., the change-to-change effects). We also tested core self-evaluation, time management skill, and financial well-being as moderators of the proposed mediated relationship. Results from latent change score modeling showed that upward work-school conflict change had a positive relationship with upward workplace deviance change via upward changes in negative emotions. Further, time management skill and financial well-being weakened the indirect relationships between upward work-school conflict change and upward workplace deviance change. However, the moderating nature of core self-evaluation on the indirect relationship contrasted with our hypothesis. Implications for theory and future research are discussed along with implications for organizations and college institutions.

The hidden performance costs of professional isolation? A latent change score model of professional isolation during the early stage of COVID-19 pandemic.

Although past research has found that professional isolation can affect discernible work-related outcomes (e.g. job performance and turnover) and important job attitudes, researchers have not examined its impact on those less discernible but still costly work behaviours. Drawing on self-regulation theories, this study examined the effect of professional isolation on employees' cyberloafing and time theft through self-control capacity impairment. With longitudinal data collected from 343 U.S. employees across five consecutive weeks at the early stage of the pandemic (i.e. from mid-March to late April 2020), our results of latent change score modelling analyses found that professional isolation change was positively related with changes in cyberloafing and time theft via change in self-control capacity impairment. The results increase our understanding of the hidden performance cost of professional isolation. This research also shifts the research focus from a static, between-person perspective to dynamic, within-person changes in professional isolation and related outcomes. The findings shed light on the self-regulation perspective in understanding the harmful consequences of professional isolation. Implications for future research are discussed along with practical implications for organisations.

Multidimensional Computerized Adaptive Testing: A Potential Path Toward the Efficient and Precise Assessment of Applied Cognition, Daily Activity, and Mobility for Hospitalized Patients.

OBJECTIVE: To develop and evaluate an efficient and precise variable-length functional assessment of applied cognition, daily activity, and mobility to inform mobility preservation and rehabilitation service delivery among hospitalized patients. DESIGN: A multidimensional item bank tapping into these dimensions was developed, with all items calibrated using a multidimensional graded response model. The items were adaptively selected from the item banks to maximize the test information, and the test ended when a joint stopping rule was satisfied. A simulation study was conducted based on the completed instrument, the Functional Assessment in Acute Care Multidimensional Computerized Adaptive Test (FAMCAT), to compare its measurement precision and efficiency capabilities relative to conventional unidimensional computerized adaptive testing. Precision was measured by the bias and root mean squared error between the estimated and true (ie, simulated) θ estimates, whereas efficiency was measured by average test length. Data were collected by an interviewer reading questions from a tablet computer and entering patients' responses. SETTING: A large Midwestern hospital. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 4143 patients hospitalized with medical diagnosis and/or surgical complications, with 2060 in the calibration sample and 2083 in the validation cohort. INTERVENTION: Not applicable. RESULTS: Among the 2083 patients in the validation sample, FAMCAT administration required an average of 6 (SD=3.11) minutes. Ninety-six percent had their tests terminated by the standard error rule after responding to an average of 22.05 (SD=7.98) items, whereas 15 were terminated by the change in θ rule, with an average test length of 45.27 (SD=11.49). The remaining 76 responded until reaching the maximum test length of 60 items. CONCLUSIONS: The FAMCAT has the potential to satisfy the need for structured, frequent, and precise assessment of functional domains among hospitalized patients with medical diagnosis and/or surgical complications. The results are promising and may be informative for others who wish to develop similar instruments when concurrent assessment of correlated domains is required.

Change of heart, change of mind, or change of willpower? Explaining the dynamic relationship between experienced and perpetrated incivility change.

As organizational scholarship increasingly recognizes the dynamic nature of interpersonal stressors like workplace incivility, the present study investigates workplace incivility change and the mechanisms through which it affects employees. Whereas prior research demonstrates that employees who experience workplace incivility are likely to engage in similar behavior because of depleted self-control, the current investigation draws on Metcalfe and Mischel's (1999) dual-process model to examine additional affective and cognitive mechanisms underlying this dynamic process. We propose that interceding changes in negative affect and cognitive rumination also mediate the dynamic relationship between experienced and perpetrated incivility change. We test our predictions using latent change score modeling with data from 481 employees surveyed four times across 3 months. Results show that the relationship between experienced and perpetrated incivility change is driven by a change in negative affect and that the dynamic indirect effect via negative affect change is moderated by individual differences in psychological detachment. Implications for science and practice are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

When minor insecurities project large shadows: A profile analysis of cognitive and affective job insecurity.

People are generally thought to worry about potential job loss to the extent to which they view job loss as likely to occur. However, might there be some individuals for whom job loss may be so detrimental that they experience high levels of worry even if they view job loss as less likely? To answer this question, the present study leveraged research on future-oriented cognition to investigate profiles of cognitive and affective job insecurity (JI). We examined how economic job dependency relates to different profiles of JI experiences as well as the implications of these profiles for understanding heterogeneity in work strain. Latent profile analysis using the U.S. International Social Survey Program data set, and replicated in the U.K. data set, revealed three profiles: Employees who are secure in their role and do not worry about potential job loss (secure alignment profile), those who worry significantly about job loss despite perceiving minimal job threats (affective JI misalignment profile), and employees who worry to some extent and perceive minimal job threats (ambivalent JI alignment profile). As anticipated, several economic job dependence factors (perceived employability and education) were predictors of profile membership. Further, those in the affective JI misalignment profile reported the greatest amount of strain. We discuss our results in terms of implications for JI theory and organizational practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Performance of the S - χ 2 Statistic for the Multidimensional Graded Response Model.

S - χ 2 is a popular item fit index that is available in commercial software packages such as flexMIRT. However, no research has systematically examined the performance of S - χ 2 for detecting item misfit within the context of the multidimensional graded response model (MGRM). The primary goal of this study was to evaluate the performance of S - χ 2 under two practical misfit scenarios: first, all items are misfitting due to model misspecification, and second, a small subset of items violate the underlying assumptions of the MGRM. Simulation studies showed that caution should be exercised when reporting item fit results of polytomous items using S - χ 2 within the context of the MGRM, because of its inflated false positive rates (FPRs), especially with a small sample size and a long test. S - χ 2 performed well when detecting overall model misfit as well as item misfit for a small subset of items when the ordinality assumption was violated. However, under a number of conditions of model misspecification or items violating the homogeneous discrimination assumption, even though true positive rates (TPRs) of S - χ 2 were high when a small sample size was coupled with a long test, the inflated FPRs were generally directly related to increasing TPRs. There was also a suggestion that performance of S - χ 2 was affected by the magnitude of misfit within an item. There was no evidence that FPRs for fitting items were exacerbated by the presence of a small percentage of misfitting items among them.

Psychometric properties of the PCL-5 in a sample of first responders.

Given that first responders experience elevated rates of posttraumatic stress disorder and suicide, there is a need for evidence-based assessments and treatments to accurately assess, diagnose, and evaluate treatment outcome. This study examined the psychometric properties of the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5) in a sample of 133 firefighters/emergency medical technicians and police officers seeking treatment for PTSD. The results indicated that PCL-5 scores showed strong internal consistency and convergent and discriminant validity. Signal detection analyses indicated a good diagnostic accuracy and an optimal cutoff score of 41 for detecting PTSD. Consistent with recent studies, confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the anhedonia model of PTSD best fit the data. Overall, findings support use of the PCL-5 as a psychometrically sound measure of PTSD in individuals at high risk for exposure to trauma.

Modeling Response Time and Responses in Multidimensional Health Measurement.

This study explored calibrating a large item bank for use in multidimensional health measurement with computerized adaptive testing, using both item responses and response time (RT) information. The Activity Measure for Post-Acute Care is a patient-reported outcomes measure comprised of three correlated scales (Applied Cognition, Daily Activities, and Mobility). All items from each scale are Likert type, so that a respondent chooses a response from an ordered set of four response options. The most appropriate item response theory model for analyzing and scoring these items is the multidimensional graded response model (MGRM). During the field testing of the items, an interviewer read each item to a patient and recorded, on a tablet computer, the patient's responses and the software recorded RTs. Due to the large item bank with over 300 items, data collection was conducted in four batches with a common set of anchor items to link the scale. van der Linden's (2007) hierarchical modeling framework was adopted. Several models, with or without interviewer as a covariate and with or without interaction between interviewer and items, were compared for each batch of data. It was found that the model with the interaction between interviewer and item, when the interaction effect was constrained to be proportional, fit the data best. Therefore, the final hierarchical model with a lognormal model for RT and the MGRM for response data was fitted to all batches of data via a concurrent calibration. Evaluation of parameter estimates revealed that (1) adding response time information did not affect the item parameter estimates and their standard errors significantly; (2) adding response time information helped reduce the standard error of patients' multidimensional latent trait estimates, but adding interviewer as a covariate did not result in further improvement. Implications of the findings for follow up adaptive test delivery design are discussed.

Robustness of Parameter Estimation to Assumptions of Normality in the Multidimensional Graded Response Model.

A central assumption that is implicit in estimating item parameters in item response theory (IRT) models is the normality of the latent trait distribution, whereas a similar assumption made in categorical confirmatory factor analysis (CCFA) models is the multivariate normality of the latent response variables. Violation of the normality assumption can lead to biased parameter estimates. Although previous studies have focused primarily on unidimensional IRT models, this study extended the literature by considering a multidimensional IRT model for polytomous responses, namely the multidimensional graded response model. Moreover, this study is one of few studies that specifically compared the performance of full-information maximum likelihood (FIML) estimation versus robust weighted least squares (WLS) estimation when the normality assumption is violated. The research also manipulated the number of nonnormal latent trait dimensions. Results showed that FIML consistently outperformed WLS when there were one or multiple skewed latent trait distributions. More interestingly, the bias of the discrimination parameters was non-ignorable only when the corresponding factor was skewed. Having other skewed factors did not further exacerbate the bias, whereas biases of boundary parameters increased as more nonnormal factors were added. The item parameter standard errors recovered well with both estimation algorithms regardless of the number of nonnormal dimensions.