Evaluating Probabilistic Forecasts with Bayesian Signal Detection Models

We propose the use of signal detection theory (SDT) to evaluate the performance of both probabilistic forecasting systems and individual forecasters. The main advantage of SDT is that it provides a principled way to distinguish the response from system diagnosticity, which is defined as the ability to distinguish events that occur from those that do not. There are two challenges in applying SDT to probabilistic forecasts. First, the SDT model must handle judged probabilities rather than the conventional binary decisions. Second, the model must be able to operate in the presence of sparse data generated within the context of human forecasting systems. Our approach is to specify a model of how individual forecasts are generated from underlying representations and use Bayesian inference to estimate the underlying latent parameters. Given our estimate of the underlying representations, features of the classic SDT model, such as the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and the area under the ROC curve (AUC), follow immediately. We show how our approach allows ROC curves and AUCs to be applied to individuals within a group of forecasters, estimated as a function of time, and extended to measure differences in forecastability across different domains. Among the advantages of this method is that it depends only on the ordinal properties of the probabilistic forecasts. We conclude with a brief discussion of how this approach might facilitate decision making.     

Not Just about Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Call for Military-Centric Social Work

Most warriors do not get PTSD but can still be affected by war. The “military gestalt,” defined as the complex myriad of “all things military” including the functions, processes, and human elements related to combat, is seriously impacted by the warrior-in-combat construct that is reflective of the person-in-environment construct. Thus, it suggests that problems within the gestalt can be understood and addressed from a military-centric social work perspective and approach. The situation is so insidious that it requires a call to action from all disciplines but, most important, for the social work profession to take the lead.     

Simulated and live practice teaching: The practice teacher's craft

The paper considers the assertion that students can learn how to practise exclusively through simulations, without working with real clients. The authors look at the benefits and difficulties of both live and simulated practice for the student's learning, and discuss two fallacies which, if left unchallenged, could threaten the existing arrangements for practice learning in social work. Finally, the paper describes practice teaching in terms of a craft.

This paper was first presented to a Conference of practice teachers and it preserves some of its original informality.     

Measuring the Influence of Unemployment Insurance on Unemployment Experiences

This article investigates the comprehensive effects of unemployment insurance (UI) policies on the amount of time and unemployment that individuals report between jobs. The econometric model jointly determines the effects of UI on the lengths of nonemployment spells, the classification of these spells as unemployment, and the likelihood of collecting program benefits. The model carefully attempts to isolate variation in UI benefits attributable to differences in generosity across programs to avoid biases in estimating policy effects induced by other contaminating sources of benefit variation. Using data on men from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, the empirical results find (a) UI recipients typically experience longer spells between jobs, at least up to the exhaustion of UI benefits, and report substantially larger fractions of these spells as unemployment; (b) weekly benefit amounts exert no significant influence on the likelihood of UI recipiency, on the length of spells between jobs, or on the fraction of these spells classified as unemployment; and (c) increases in weeks of UI eligibility raise the likelihood of UI collection and lengthen the number of weeks of unemployment between jobs by inducing long spells to become longer and not by altering short-duration behavior.     

Activating adult allies from a rural community on lesbian,gay, bisexual,transgender, and queer student issues in school using photovoice

Purpose: Many students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) face hostile school environments that can negatively impact their mental health and education. This study involved a photovoice project where high school students from a gay-straight alliance in the rural southeastern United States took photographs that depicted the issues LGBTQ students were facing and then exhibited their photographs and stories to individuals from the school system and local community to promote awareness, dialogue, and action. Methods: Twenty adults who attended the photovoice exhibit responded to an online survey about their experiences with the intervention. Results: Eighty-five percent of adults reported that the intervention made them think about issues they had not previously considered, including the struggles LGBTQ youths face, gender issues, and living in a rural community. Common emotions experienced at the intervention included feeling excited, concern for the youths, and proud of the youths. Furthermore, 81% of the adults indicated that they would take action or behave differently as a result of the intervention, including supporting and affirming LGBTQ students, using gender-neutral and -inclusive language, and confronting bias in themselves and others. Conclusions: Photovoice is a promising strategy for LGBTQ students to activate adult allies in their community.     

Ecological Risk Assessment,Prediction, and Assessing Risk Predictions

Ecological risk assessment embodied in an adaptive management framework is becoming the global standard approach for formally assessing and managing the ecological risks of technology and development. Ensuring the continual improvement of ecological risk assessment approaches is partly achieved through the dissemination of not only the types of risk assessment approaches used, but also their efficacy. While there is an increasing body of literature describing the results of general comparisons between alternate risk assessment methods and models, there is a paucity of literature that post hoc assesses the performance of specific predictions based on an assessment of risk and the effectiveness of the particular model used to predict the risk. This is especially the case where risk assessments have been used to grant consent or approval for the construction of major infrastructure projects. While postconstruction environmental monitoring is increasingly commonplace, it is not common for a postconstruction assessment of the accuracy and performance of the ecological risk assessment and underpinning model to be undertaken. Without this “assessment of the assessment,” it is difficult for other practitioners to gain insight into the performance of the approach and models used and therefore, as argued here, this limits the rate of improvement of risk assessment approaches.