Self‐control and Resistance to School*

Dans cet article, on examine la relation entre l'autocontrôle, le contrôle social et la résistance au système scolaire. Les données d'étude sont tirées d'un sondage réalisé auprès d'étudiants des premier et deuxième cycles du secondaire en Alberta. Les résultats de ce sondage penchent fortement en faveur de la General Theory of Crime (Gottfredson et Hirschi, 1990), selon laquelle la perte d'autocontrôle est le prédicteur le plus sûr de tous les types de résistance. Les résultats soutiennent l'hypothèse voulant que, si le lien entre classe sociale (ou bien genre ou appartenance ethnique) et résistance est ténu (au Canada du moins), c'est peut‐être parce que les mécanismes d'autocontrôle qui suscitent ou rejettent le phénomène de résistance ne sont pas intimement liés à la classe sociale (ou bien au genre ou à l'appartenance ethnique). Toutefois, le sexe, l'âge, la classe sociale et l'appartenance ethnique restent étroitement liés à certains ou à l'ensemble des aspects de la résistance au système scolaire même en présence d'autocontrôle. Les conclusions de la General Theory of Crime et leurs répercussions sont également abordées ici. This paper tests the relationship between self‐control, social control and resistance to school. The data source is a survey of senior and junior high‐school students in Alberta, Canada. Results offer strong support for the General Theory of Crime (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990) in that lack of self‐control is the strongest predictor of all types of resistance. The results support the hypothesis that if the link between social class (or gender and ethnicity) and resistance is low (at least in Canada), it may be because self‐control mechanisms that produce or repudiate resistance are not strongly linked to social class (or gender and ethnicity). Nevertheless, gender, age, class and ethnicity maintain a significant relationship with some or all aspects of resistance to school even after controlling for self‐control. Implications of the findings for the General Theory of Crime are discussed.     

Bootstrap power of the generalized correlation coefficient

We present a bootstrap Monte Carlo algorithm for computing the power function of the generalized correlation coefficient. The proposed method makes no assumptions about the form of the underlying probability distribution and may be used with observed data to approximate the power function and pilot data for sample size determination. In particular, the bootstrap power functions of the Pearson product moment correlation and the Spearman rank correlation are examined. Monte Carlo experiments indicate that the proposed algorithm is reliable and compares well with the asymptotic values. An example which demonstrates how this method can be used for sample size determination and power calculations is provided.     

Class Position,Class Ideology and Class Voting: Mobilization of Support for the New Democratic Party in the Canadian Election of 1984*

La recherche canadienne sur le vote des classes a surtout fait ressortir l'importance des forces structurelles qui contribuent à faire naître l'appui au Nouveau Parti démocratique (NPD) en insistant moins sur l'idéologie des classes. Le présent article contient un modèle LISREL faisant état des relations entre les positions des classes, leur idéologic et le vote en faveur du NPD selon la base de données provenant de l'étude des élections nationales du Canada de 1984. Les observations soulignent l'importance que revêtent, en tant que sources des suffrages des classes, trois dimensions de l'idéologie des classes qui repré-sentent en partie le résultat de la position de ces dernières. L'idéologie égalitaire et l'appui au maintien des syndicate forts ont des effete directs et prononcés sur le vote en faveur du NPD alors que l'identifi-cation à une classe exerce un effet indirect par le biais de deux autres variables. Même si la position objective des classes agit indépendam-ment sur les suffrages accordés au NPD, ses répercussions semblent limitées comparativement à celles que produisent les trois variables liées à l'étude. En modélisant les effete de la position et de l'idéologie des classes, les auteurs ont employé trois variables non encore utili-sées dans les analyses précédentes des suffrages des classes, soit l'appui des père et mère au NPD, la présence d'un syndiqué (autre que le répondant) dans le ménage et l'appartenance à une «classe nouvelle». Chacune de ces variables a un effet majeur sur le soutien donné au NPD. Quant aux répercussions attribuables à la région, elles semblent assez limitées une fois que l'on a tenu compte du vote des père et mère en faveur du NPD et de l'appui accordéà ce dernier à l'occasion des élections de 1980. Canadian research on class voting has primarily emphasized structural forces that produce support for the NDP, with less attention to class ideology. This paper presents a LISREL model of relationships among class position, class ideology, and voting for the NDP, based on data from the Canadian National Election Study of 1984. The findings point to the importance of three dimensions of class ideology, produced in part by class position, as sources of class voting. Egalitarian ideology and support for union strength have strong direct effects on NDP voting, and class identification exerts an indirect effect through the other two variables. Although objective class position has an independent effect on NDP voting, its impact appears to be modest in relation to that of the three attitudinal variables. In modelling the effects of class position and ideology, three variables not used in previous Canadian analyses of class voting have been employed: parental support for the NDP, presence of a union member (other than the respondent) in the household, and membership in a “New Class.” Each has a solid effect on NDP support. The effects of region appear as quite modest, after controlling for parental support for the NDP and for NDP support in the 1980 election.     

The Effect of Activating Metacognitive Strategies on the Listening Performance and Metacognitive Awareness of EFL Students

This study investigates the effect of activating metacognitive strategies on the listening performance of English as a foreign language (EFL) university students and explores the impact of such strategies on their metacognitive awareness of the listening task. The participants were N = 50 students of English literature at the state university of Qom, Iran. After screening the participants from among 60 students, they were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The experimental group (n = 25) received the metacognitive strategy instruction based on the models proposed by Vandergrift and Tafaghodtari (2010), while the control group (n = 25) received just the listening input with no strategy instruction. The listening module of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) was utilized to evaluate the listening performance of the participants in both groups in pretests and posttests, and the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) instrument was applied to measure the metacognitive awareness of the treatment group before and after the treatment. The results of the IELTS test revealed that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group on the posttest and according to the analysis of the MALQ instrument there was a significant improvement in the students’ level of metacognitive awareness after strategy instruction. The interview results in the discussion section also supported the findings and shed more light on the details.     

Some theoretical results concerning non parametric estimation by using a judgment poststratification sample

ABSTRACT

In this paper, some of the properties of non parametric estimation of the expectation of g(X) (any function of X), by using a judgment poststratification sample (JPS), have been discussed. A class of estimators (including the standard JPS estimator and a JPS estimator proposed by Frey and Feeman (2012 Frey, J., Feeman, T.G. (2012). An improved mean estimator for judgment post-stratification. Comput. Stat. Data Anal. 56(2):418–426.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], Comput. Stat. Data An.) is considered. The paper provides mean and variance of the members of this class, and examines their consistency and asymptotic distribution. Specifically, the results are for the estimation of population mean, population variance, and cumulative distribution function. We show that any estimators of the class may be less efficient than simple random sampling (SRS) estimator for small sample sizes. We prove that the relative efficiency of some estimators in the class with respect to balanced ranked set sampling (BRSS) estimator tends to 1 as the sample size goes to infinity. Furthermore, the standard JPS mean estimator, and Frey–Feeman JPS mean estimator are specifically studied and we show that two estimators have the same asymptotic distribution. For the standard JPS mean estimator, in perfect ranking situations, optimum values of H (the ranking class size), for different sample sizes, are determined non parametrically for populations that are not heavily skewed or thick tailed.     

On the entropy estimators

The paper introduces an estimator of the entropy of a continuous random variable. The estimator is obtained by modifying the estimator proposed by Ebrahimi et al. [Two measures of sample entropy, Statist. Probab. Lett. 20 (1994), pp. 225–234]. The consistency of the estimator is proved and comparisons are made with Vasicek's estimator [A test for normality based on sample entropy, J. R. Stat. Soc. Ser. B 38 (1976), pp. 54–59], van Es estimator [Estimating functionals related to a density by class of statistics based on spacings, Scand. J. Statist. 19 (1992), pp. 61–72], Ebrahimi et al. estimator and Correa estimator [A new estimator of entropy, Comm. Statist. Theory Methods 24 (1995), pp. 2439–2449]. The results indicate that the proposed estimator has smaller mean-squared error than above estimators. A real example is presented and analysed.     

A Test of Independence Based on the Likelihood of Cut-Points

We define a test statistic C _n based on the sum of the likelihood ratio statistics for testing independence in the 2 × 2 tables defined at n sample cut-points (X _i , Y _i ). The asymptotic distribution of C _n , given the cut-points, is sum of dependent χ² variables with one degree of freedom. We use the bootstrap to obtain the distribution of C _n . We compare the performance of several tests of bivariate independence, including Pearson, Spearman, and Kendall correlations, Blum-Kiefer-Rosenblatt statistic, and C _n under several copulas and given marginal distributions.     

Modeling and optimizing an agro-supply chain considering different quality grades and storage systems for fresh products: a Benders decomposition solution approach

This paper proposes a mathematical model in the context of agro-supply chain management, considering specific characteristics of agro-products to assist purchase, storage, and transportation decisions. In addition, a new method for determining the required quality score of different types of products is proposed based on their loss factors and purchasing costs. The model aims to minimize total cost imposed by purchasing fresh products, opening warehouses, holding inventories, operational activities, and transportation. Two sets of examples, including small and medium-sized problems, are implemented by general algebraic modeling language (GAMS) software to evaluate the model. Then, Benders decomposition (BD) algorithm is applied to tackle the complexity of solving large-sized instances. The results of both GAMS and BD are compared in terms of objective function values and computational time to demonstrate the efficiency of the BD algorithm. Finally, the model is applied in a real case study involving an apple supply chain to obtain managerial insights.