Related Posts

• Frequently Asked Questions About APA Style

  

  This week’s blog was contributed by Erika Thompson, PAR’s managing production editor. It is the third part in a series on writing. Catch up on parts one and two.  As a mental health practitioner, you are required to write throughout your career. One way you can streamline your writing is by using a style guide. At PAR, the house style we use for all our publications is based on American Psychological Association (APA) Style. Via the PAR Blog, we’re providing some useful information about facets of APA Style that will help you tackle research, write better reports, and communicate more effectively with colleagues.  This week, we’re covering some questions our editors frequently get asked about APA Style.  I can never remember the rule about numbers! When should they be numerals and when are we supposed to use words?  The general rule is to use numerals for numbers 10 and above and words for numbers zero through nine. However, there are exceptions. Ages, dates, and time should be expressed in numerals, even if they’re below 10: 3-year period, ages 18–25 years, 3:45 a.m. The same ...

• What you need to know about PAR’s research and training discounts

  

  Did you know PAR offers training and research discounts to qualified customers? As we look toward the upcoming school year, we want to remind professors and educators about some of the programs we offer when you use PAR-published products in your courses and research studies.    Educational Training Discount   This 40% discount is offered for professors and educators engaged in training in college and university courses that are using PAR products. These courses should be for graduate students who are learning to use assessment products. Instructors must apply for the discount each year using this form.    University Partnership Program (UPP)   As an extension of our Educational Training Discount program, we offer additional benefits to our professors who join our UPP program. UPP members can look to PAR for dedicated assistance to help you decide which tests fit best into your syllabus. In addition to concierge service, UPP members are offered benefits such as free test kits when adopting a new PAR product in your training course and free uses of PARiConnect for students. Instructors interested in joining the PAR UPP program can complete the Educational ...

• Need to Change Your Qualification Level?

  In accordance with the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing and PAR's competency-based qualification guidelines, many tests and materials sold by PAR are available only to those professionals who are appropriately trained to administer, score, and interpret psychological tests. Eligibility to purchase restricted materials is determined on the basis of training, education, and experience. Customers may find, however, that they must update their qualifications as they progress through their career. If you have received licensure from an appropriate agency or have additional training and experience that meets the requirements of a higher Qualification Level, you may update your Qualification Level in two ways. If you are registered on our Web site, please sign in. Once you are signed in, click on Update Qualifications on the right of the page in the PAR Shopping Cart to supply us with your additional information. If you are not currently registered on our Web site, you may send your update request directly to Customer Support. Be sure to include your current PAR Customer Number and all relevant information about your additional credentials.

• Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics*: Dan Ariely’s New Book Tackles the Truth about Dishonesty

  Why are lying and cheating so prevalent? Is dishonesty just a part of human nature? What can be done to encourage people to be more truthful? In a recent interview on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, talked about his new book, The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie To Everyone—Especially Ourselves, which was published on June 5. Ariely is interested in the psychology behind lying, and he has conducted a number of experiments over the years that were designed to get at why—and how—people lie. His experiments, which to date have involved more than 30,000 subjects, show that although very few people lie a lot, most of us lie “just a little.” Ariely also discovered some very simple ways to encourage people to be much more honest. Why do we tell only little lies, or cheat only in small ways? “We want to view ourselves as honest, wonderful people and when we cheat ... as long as we cheat just a little bit, we can still view ...

• Learning Baby’s Sex Before Birth May Say More About Mom…

  Parents’ choice to find out baby’s sex before birth reveals more than the gender of their offspring. According to a recent study from Ohio State University, a woman’s decision to learn her baby’s sex before birth may be an indicator of her child-rearing beliefs. According to the researchers, mothers who are more open to new experiences, have higher levels of conscientiousness, and have more egalitarian views about the roles of men and women in society tend to wait until delivery to learn their baby’s sex. Mothers who scored higher on a test of parenting perfectionism, meaning they had unrealistically high expectations, were slightly more likely to learn their baby’s sex in utero. Furthermore, mothers who reported higher levels of curiosity and independence were less likely to learn their baby’s sex before birth. The research focused on 182 expectant mothers in Columbus, Ohio who participated in a study to track behaviors across the transition to parenthood. The research team administered a variety of tests to pregnant women to measure personality, gender role beliefs, and expectations regarding parenting perfectionism. Approximately two out of ...

• As Old as You Feel: Attitudes About Aging Affect the Health of Older Adults

  A new study suggests that people who hold positive attitudes about aging are 44% more likely to recover from a serious disability than those who view aging in a more negative way. The study, led by Becca R. Levy, PhD, director of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Division at the Yale School of Public Health, is described in a research letter in the November 21 Journal of the American Medical Association. Over a 10-year period, Levy and her colleagues studied a group of 598 individuals who participated in a health plan in greater New Haven, Connecticut. All participants were at least 70 years old and free of disability at the start of the study, and all experienced at least one month of disability from active daily life during the follow-up period. To measure the participants’ attitudes about aging, researchers interviewed them monthly and asked them to complete written assessments every 18 months during the course of the study. In these assessments, participants were asked for five terms or phrases they associated with older people. Their words were rated on a 5-point ...