The person-oriented approach: A short theoretical and practical guide

Lühike ülevaade indiviidile suunatud käsitlusviisist (person-oriented approach) koostati juhendmaterjaliks selle meetodi kasutamisest huvitatud uurijatele. Artiklis arutletakse meetodi teoreetiliste, metodoloogiliste ja praktiliste kaalutluste üle. Esiteks osutatakse mõningatele ajaloolistele juurtele. Sellele järgneb lühiülevaade holistlik-interaktsioonilisest uurimisparadigmast, mis moodustab indiviidikeskse käsitlusviisi üldise raami. Sellel käsitlusviisil on olemas nii teoreetiline kui ka metodoloogiline pool. Peale peamiste teoreetiliste tõekspidamiste tutvustatakse ka enam levinud indiviidikeskseid meetodeid. Indiviidile suunatud käsitlusviisi tuumaks on süsteemne vaade, mille kohaselt moodustavad süsteemi komponendid mustri, mida võiks pidada jagamatuks. Seda mustrit tuleks mõista ja uurida ühe tervikuna, mitte jagada tükkideks (variaabliteks/muutujateks), et neid tükke seejärel eraldiseisvate ühikutena uurida. Seega kasutatakse selliseid metodoloogilisi vahendeid, mis võimaldavad analüüsida tervikut (nt klasteranalüüs). Samuti esitatakse empiiriline näide koolihinnete arengumustrite uurimise kohta. Full text&nbsp

The interpretation of single individuals’ measurements

This article concerns the interpretation and construction of measurements for single observational units, including the crea-tion of scales or indexes to improve the quality of the measurements. The focus is on the individual as the observational unit in psychology, but to present a broader perspective related measurement issues in official statistics are also discussed. It is concluded that when individual measurements are to be interpreted, measurement precision must be given priority and taken into account in the research design. Unfortunately, most measures in psychology are not highly reliable, and examples are given demonstrating that such measures do not normally allow the researcher to make inferences about single individuals. Methods for testing questionnaires in a cognitive laboratory that have been developed within survey research can provide useful tools to increase both reliability and validity of single questions/items

Response to von Eye and Wiedermann’s commentary “Strengthening arguments based on scale levels?”

No abstract available

Challenges for Person-Oriented Research: Some Considerations Based on Laursen’s Article

This is a commentary to an article published by Brett Laursen in the first issue of the Journal for Person-Oriented Research where he wrote about his personal experiences with the person-oriented approach (Laursen, 2015). He discussed several sources of confusion with the approach and pointed to the importance of identifying areas of miscommunication that need to be addressed. Sources of confusion included the comparatively modest impact of the approach on mainstream research, terminological confusion, technical obstacles, and unclarity about what new knowledge is produced by the approach. These sources are briefly discussed and it is pointed out that the confusion is only partly due to miscommunication. It is true that those of us responsible for developing and advocating the approach have a communication problem with the broader scientific community that needs to be addressed - but Laursen´s confusion also points to challenges for the person-oriented approach in theory formulation and methodology development. Finally, it is urged that, when writing a paper using the person-oriented approach, the researcher should pay attention to Laursen´s sources of confusion and strive for clarity

A Nonlinear Dynamic Model Applied to Data with Two Times of Measurement

A good model of developmental phenomena should not only “explain” the data in the sense that the model is not falsified by the data but it should also be built on the basic theoretical assumptions about the process under study. This is often not the case when standard statistical models are applied to developmental data. An alternative is then to apply nonlinear dynamical system modeling. This approach is followed in the article and it is illustrated by a provisional model of the development of boys’ problem behavior between the ages 10 and 13. The underlying interactionistic theory of development was mirrored in a nonlinear model that predicted outcomes marginally better than a standard regression model. It is pointed out in the article that it might be possible to use nonlinear dynamic system modeling also in contexts where data are available only from a few measurement occasions

ROPstat: A general statistical package useful for conducting person-oriented analyses

ROPstat is a wide scope statistical program package which offers specialties in three domains: 1) robust techniques, 2) ordinal analyses, and 3) pattern and person oriented methods. Many of them are not available in other common statistical softwares. In the present paper, first the general features and the main structure of ROPstat are briefly outlined, followed by a more detailed summary of pattern-oriented methods (detecting and imputing missing values, residual case identification, different types of classifications, post-analyses after classifications, etc.). In the last section we present some selected person-oriented scientific questions and show with real-life research data how they can be analyzed using ROPstat

Revitalizing the typological approach: Some methods for finding types

The purpose is to discuss and exemplify how a typological approach could be designed for studying phenomena believed to be best understood within a person-oriented theoretical framework. The focus is mainly restricted to the case of studying the typological structure of a sample at a single point in time, and restricted to analyzing variable profiles where each variable has a “negative” and “positive” endpoint. An artificial data set and an empirical data set were analyzed using two different methodological approaches, one more explorative (using LICUR, a cluster analysis-based procedure) and one more model-based (using the MCLUST procedure). For the artificial data set, the LICUR procedure was successful in finding the true classification structure but the MCLUST procedure performed surprisingly badly. For the empirical data set, both procedures produced rather similar solutions and they showed moderate validity. However, the LICUR solution appeared to be slightly superior. It was argued that applying a sound classification methodology and carefully validating the resulting classifications are extremely important, even more so in a developmental context. It was also argued that, in a number of situations, a more explorative approach could be more useful than a standard model-based one

Performing Cluster Analysis Within a Person-Oriented Context: Some Methods for Evaluating the Quality of Cluster Solutions

The paper focuses on the internal validity of clustering solutions. The “goodness” of a cluster structure can be judged by means of different cluster quality coefficient (QC) measures, such as the percentage of explained variance, the point-biserial correlation, the Silhouette coefficient, etc. The paper presents the most commonly used QCs occurring in well-known statistical program packages, and we have strived to make the presentation as non technical as possible to make it accessible to the applied researcher. The focus is on QCs useful in person-oriented research. Based on simulated data with independent variables, the paper shows that QCs can be strongly influenced by the number of clusters and the number of input variables, and that the value of a QC can be fairly high even in the absence of any real cluster structure. When evaluating the internal validity, it is helpful to relate the QCs of a clustering solution to those obtained in parallel analyses of random data. We also introduce a new type of QC, measuring the relative improvement (MORI) of a QC obtained for a certain clustering solution relative to the corresponding QC based on a relevant type of random data

Developments in Methods for Person-Oriented Research

NO ABSTRACT AVAILABL