Prizes and Heroes: Lagging and leading indicators

What are the purposes of prizes and recognitions? Are they lagging indicators of past achievements or leading indicators of things to come

The importance of individualized article-specific metrics for evaluating research productivity

This editorial discusses the rationale for using article-specific rather than journal-specific metrics for evaluating highly published authors

The Retrovirology Open Access experience

The Retrovirology Open Access experience after publishing more than 500 articles is discussed

Psychometric properties of the self-efficacy scale among undergraduate students in Malaysia

Background: Self-efficacy (SE) is a person’s belief in his or her own capability to perform and accomplish a task that could produce a favourable outcome, despite facing obstacles. This study aimed to confirm the validity and reliability of an SE scale among undergraduate students at the Health Campus of the Universiti Sains Malaysia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among the undergraduate students using a self-administered questionnaire. After using a purposive sampling method, 562 students completed the questionnaire. Mplus 8 was employed to conduct the confirmatory factor analysis on the psychometric properties of Bandura’s 18-item SE scale with three factors (internal feeling, competing demands and situational). Then, the composite reliability was calculated for each factor. Results: Most of the students were Malay (73.3%) females (79.0%) who exercised 2.62 times a week for an average of 43.37 min per session. The final measurement model was obtained after removing six problematic items, and the model was deemed fit based on several indices [Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.067, Standardised Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = 0.004, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.924]. The composite reliability values of the three factors were acceptable (0.65 to 0.84). Conclusion: The simplified 12-item SE scale with three factors displayed good fit indices with regard to the data, and they were considered to be acceptable for the current sample.The present study was partially supported by the Research University’s Individual Grant (USM-RUI) from Universiti Sains Malaysia (1001/PPSP/812149)

Intelligence and ambition are distributed equally around the globe

The impact of freely accessible knowledge distribution platforms is briefly discussed

The 2011 Retrovirology Prize winner Masao Matsuoka: forward looking and antisense

Masao Matsuoka wins the 2011 Retrovirology Prize

Psychometric Properties of the Decisional Balance Scale: A Confirmatory Study on the Malaysian University students

Copyright © 2020 by the authors. Decisional balance (DB) is the perceived positive aspects (advantages) and negative aspects (disadvantages) that are associated with behavioural change. Behavioural change is dependent on an individual’s thoughts after considering the advantages of engaging in exercise. When the benefits exceed the barriers, people are more likely to make changes after cognitively evaluating the functional aspects. The purpose of the present study is to determine the validity and reliability of the DB scale among Malaysian university students using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). A cross-sectional study was carried out among students who took part in the co-curricular program. By using the purposive sampling method, students were recruited and given written informed consent forms after acknowledging they understood the purpose of the study. The DB scale, which consists of two factors, namely, advantages and disadvantages, was used as the instrument in the study. The advantages referred to the benefits of participating in exercise, whereas the disadvantages referred to the barriers to exercise. The 10-item, self-administered questionnaires were distributed to participating students. Data were analysed using Mplus 8 for the CFA. A total of 562 students (females = 444, males = 118) with a mean age of 19.81 years (SD = 1.22) participated in the study. Most of the students were engaged in regular physical activity for at least three exercise sessions (mean = 2.62) per week, and the average duration per session was 43 minutes. The hypothesised measurement model of DB did not fit the data well; thus, the measurement model was re-specified. The final measurement model fit the data well (comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.960, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = 0.943, standardised root mean square residual (SRMR) = 0.055, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) (90% confidence interval (CI)) = 0.061 (0.047, 0.074), RMSEA p-value = 0.096). The composite reliability values of 0.757 for the advantages and 0.792 for the disadvantages were acceptable. The 10-item DB scale with two factors displayed a good model fit for the data with good scale reliability. This could be beneficial for Malaysian undergraduate students in making decisions before engaging in physical activity. The benefits of, and barriers to, exercise could be an important component that affects their decision making.Universiti Sains Malaysia; Exercise Medicine Research GrantResearch University’s Individual Grant (USM-RUI, 1001/PPSP/812149) from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM); Exercise Medicine Research Grant (EMRG/2019/19004)

Equal versus equivalent access to the scientific literature

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