Erinevate kõrgharidusväljundite modelleerimine varasemate haridusnäitajate alusel

Uurimistöö peaeesmärgiks on leida vastus küsimusele, kas ja kuivõrd on võimalik prognoosida noorte järgnevat eluteed (eelkõige vahendatult kõrghariduse omandamise kaudu töömaailma siirdumisel) gümnaasiumi riigieksamite tulemuste alusel. Samuti on eesmärgiks vaadelda, mil määral on haridusteed koondatavad tüüpidesse (erinevatesse mustritesse) erinevate õppeasutust, õppimist ning õppijat iseloomustavate tunnuste põhjal, ning püüda leida tunnused, mis ennustaksid teatud tüüpi haridustee kulgu; samuti teatud tüüpi haridustee väljundeid tööturunäitajate (tööhõive ja selle valdkond; sotsiaalmaksu alusel leitud arvestuslik reaalpalk) kujul. Käesoleva uurimistöö unikaalsus seisneb asjaolus, et kutse- ning kõrgharidusnäitajad ning sotsiaalmaksuindikaatorid on käsitletud gümnaasiumihariduse tulemuste taustal, mida kõige konkreetsemalt iseloomustavad riigieksamite tulemused

Riigieksamitulemuste võrreldavuse loomine

Käsitledes Eesti haridussüsteemis riigieksamite hinnete võrreldavust, on käesoleva tööga vastatud vähemalt järgmistele küsimustele: 1) Kas ja millised on hindamissüsteemide ühispõhimõtted erinevates ainetes? 2) Kas erinevate riigieksamite tulemuste palliomistused on samatähenduslikud? 3) Kas ühe aine piires eri aegadel saadud tulemused on samatähenduslikud? Kas võib ühe eksamiaine piires välja joonistada keskmiste hinnete ajalise trendi, teades, et võrdleme analoogseid, samatähenduslikke tulemusi? 4) Kas on võimalik hindamisel kasutatavad arvud seostada kvalitatiivsete hinnangutega, fikseerimaks hinnete samatähenduslikkust, (hinde arvväärtus võib olla sama, aga kas tema tähendus on sama)? 5) Kas riigieksamite tulemused saavad olla üliõpilaskandidaatide usaldusväärse võrdluse aluseks, (kas eristavad eksaminande piisavalt hästi kõrgkoolide vastuvõtukriteeriumidena)

A New Approach for Assessment of Mental Architecture: Repeated Tagging

A new approach to the study of a relatively neglected property of mental architecture—whether and when the already-processed elements are separated from the to-be-processed elements—is proposed. The process of numerical proportion discrimination between two sets of elements defined either by color or by orientation can be described as sampling with or without replacement (characterized by binomial or hypergeometric probability distributions respectively) depending on the possibility to tag an element once or repeatedly. All empirical psychometric functions were approximated by a theoretical model showing that the ability to keep track of the already tagged elements is not an inflexible part of the mental architecture but rather an individually variable strategy which also depends on conspicuity of perceptual attributes. Strong evidence is provided that in a considerable number of trials, observers tagged the same element repeatedly which can only be done serially at two separate time moments

Elementaarsete liikumis-, värvi- ja orientatsioonisignaalide summeerimine terviklikuks tajuks

Väitekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsioone.Enamik senistest uurimustest on eksplitsiitselt või implitsiitselt eeldanud, et globaalse liikumismulje kujunemisse on kaasatud kõik stiimulis esindatud elementaarsignaalid. Väitekirjas esitatud tulemused näitavad, et see eeldus ei pea alati paika. Töös esitatakse konkreetne ja läbipaistev Bernoulli urnimudelitel põhinev meetod reaalse vaatleja efektiivsuse hindamiseks ideaalse vaatleja suhtes, mis ühtlasi võimaldab võrrelda sooritust erinevate ülesannete lõikes. Olukordades, kus stiimulid koosnevad diskreetsetest ja kvantifitseeritavatest elementidest, on Bernoulli mudelil traditsioonilise Thurstone’i mudeli ees mitmed väga selged eelised. Klassikalise mudeli üheks eelduseks on sisemiste seisundite kontiinum, millele projitseeritakse väliste atribuutide stohhastilised representatsioonid. Erinevalt klassikalisest Thurstone’i eristusprotsesside mudelist asetub Bernoulli mudelite puhul juhuslikkuse komponent elementide alamhulga valikus kuvatud elementide koguhulgast. Empiirilise psühhomeetrilise funktsiooni kirjelduse tasandil on Bernoulli ja Thurstone’i mudelid formaalselt ekvivalentsed ja sellest lähtuvalt puuduvad esialgu argumendid nende adekvaatsuse ja bioloogilise tõepära võrdlevaks hindamiseks. Samas on Bernoulli mudel matemaatiliselt minimalistlikum ning lihtsamini falsifitseeritav. Järeldati, et kui suhtelise arvukuse hindamise täpsust kajastav empiiriline psühhomeetriline funktsioon on paremini kirjeldatav binomiaalse kui hüpergeomeetrilise vastusmudeliga, viitab see üheselt, et teatud osa stiimulelementidest inspekteeritakse korduvalt, mis on võimalik ainult kahel või enamal ajahetkel (samas on välistatud olukord, kus paralleelne töötlusmudel imiteeriks seriaalset). Pakutud meetod võimaldab uurida mentaalse arhitektuuri üht seni vähest tähelepanu pälvinud aspekti – elementide korduvat loendamist – ning selle rakendamine on viinud kaalukate tõenditeni, mis viitavad, et teatud hulgal vaatluskordadest segistab inimene juba loendatud ning veel loendamata elemendid, võttes üht ja sama elementi arvesse korduvalt, mis saab sündida vaid seriaalselt.Many previous studies have presumed, explicitly or tacitly, that in forming of the global motion percept, all elementary motion signals present in the stimulus are pooled together. As the presented results indicate this is not always the case. In the thesis, an approach of estimating observer’s efficiency in a straightforward fashion that is also highly comparable across different tasks and based on Bernoulli’s urn model is proposed. In all situations where stimuli consist of discrete quantifiable elements, the Bernoulli’s urn model has obvious advantages before the classical Thurstonian model which requires a continuum of internal states and a fuzzy projection of external attributes onto it. Alternatively to the classical Thurstonian model of discriminal processes, in Bernoullian models the randomness lies not in the internal representations of the stimuli, but in sampling of the elements out from the total number of elements in the display. It was shown that the Bernoullian model is formally equivalent to the Thurstonian discrimi¬nation model in terms of the description of empirically obtained psychometric function. Therefore, for the time being, it is impossible to decide which of the two models provides a biologically more adequate description. Nevertheless, the Bernoullian model is simpler and more easily falsi¬fiable. It was concluded that if an empirically determined psycho¬metric function for numerical discriminations between two sets of items is better described by binomial rather than hypergeometric response model, it would provide evidence (that would not suffer from potential model mimicking) that some of these elements are inspected twice or more times. This new method for identifying one neglected aspect of the mental architecture – avoiding repeated tagging – provided a strong proof that in a considerable number of trials human observer counted the same element twice or more times which can only be done at different time moments, that is serially

The applicability of web-based solutions in headache epidemiology research

Abstract Background Epidemiological research of headache is vital but resource consuming prerequisite for evidence-based development in the field. Rapid evolution of information technology may provide new opportunities for population-based surveys. The aim of this study was to evaluate the applicability of web-based solutions in epidemiological studies of primary headaches. Methods An online survey was conducted among 20–64 year old Estonian citizens, using a previously validated headache questionnaire. The participants were accessed through most popular portals and e-mail domains to get the maximum coverage of Estonian digital community. The resulting one-year headache prevalences were compared to those acquired in parallel from a population-based cross-sectional person-to-person study in Estonia. Results Five thousand seven hundred eight entries were made by 5347 participants in the online study. Of the participants, 3896 (72.9%) had no headache, 1436 (26.8%) had only one and 15 (0.3%) had more than one type of headache. The study sample demographics were statistically significantly different from Estonian population and the prevalences were adjusted by age, gender, education and habitat. The proportion of headache sufferers was smaller in the online study sample (23.1% vs 41.0% in the population-based parallel person-to-person study). Among the headache sufferers the proportions of different headache diagnoses were similar across the two studies with the exceptions of episodic migraine and episodic tension-type headache. There were less migraine and more tension-type headache sufferers in the online study sample. Discussion This is the first study addressing applicability of web-based solutions in headache related large epidemiological studies. Online approach presents a much faster means of data collection, larger samples, has mechanisms of avoiding data contamination and distinguishes the proportions of most primary headache disorders among the headache sufferers. However, the present online survey was significantly biased towards the people without headache, leading to underestimation of headache prevalence. This stems from the shortcomings related to method of sampling, access and engagement. Conclusion Online headache epidemiology research could be a resource saving alternative to person-to-person studies, however, further research is needed to overcome the problems related to methods of sampling, access and engagement. </jats:sec

Visibility versus accountability in pooling local motion signals into global motion direction. Attention, Perception &amp; Psychophysics (submitted

Abstract The human observer is surprisingly inaccurate in discriminating proportions between two spatially overlapping sets of randomly distributed elements moving in opposite directions. It was shown that observers took into account an equivalent of 74 % of all moving elements when the task was to estimate their relative number, but only an equivalent of 21 % of the same elements when the task was to discriminate between opposite directions. It was concluded that, in the motion direction discrimination task, a large proportion of the signal from all of the elements was inaccessible to the observers, whereas the majority of the signal was accessible in a numerosity task. This type of perceptual limitation belongs to the attentional blindness category, where a strong sensory signal cannot be noticed when processing is diverted by parallel events. In addition, we found no evidence for the common-fate principle, as the ability to discriminate numerical proportions remained the same, irrespective of whether all estimated elements were moving coherently in one direction or unpredictably in opposite directions