Previous research has proved the concept mapping is an effective tool to evaluate knowledge structure, but usually the concept mapping served to foster and trace individual progress in specific field of knowledge. No attention was paid to identifying or verifying the formal indicators of concept maps or their sensitiveness to the level of competence in a specific field of knowledge. However it will make possible to use concept mapping as a standardized tool. In the current study some possible indicators are suggested based on concept maps of experts (n=4) and novices (n=9) in the field of data analysis. Experts and Received in July 2017 Anastasiya Kapuza and Kseniya Vergeles worked on the article within the framework of the Basic Research Program of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, using the subsidy allocated as part of the 5-100 Project, which provides government support for leading Russian universities (translated from Russian by A. Perova).

Measures of psychological attributes, such as motivation, typically involve rating scales, assuming that an attribute can be ordered. If an attribute has an ordinal structure, its levels stand in ordinal relations to one another, and these must be transitive. We tested if transitivity is preserved when people compare different motives in terms of their importance to learning. We found transitivity violations in both strict (Study 1) and non-strict (Study 2) orderings in about half of the participants. Nevertheless, based on the distribution of such violations, we conclude that an ordinal structure of motivation can be found, but only when levels of motives differ noticeably. As the levels become subjectively similar, transitivity is not preserved, and the ordinal structure cannot be justified even in non-strict ordering. The findings question the mainstream practice of measuring psychological attributes before their structure is properly explored.

Introduction. While the importance of digital reading in modern education is constantly increasing, there are some knowledge gaps in investigating reading patterns (reading digital and print texts). There is still little scientific understanding of how Russian schoolchildren choose the medium of reading and how children assess their reading behavior in the digital environment. The purpose of the article is to reveal the factors that influence Russian schoolchildren’s choice of a reading medium, as well as the features of their self-evaluation of digital reading practices. Materials and Methods. To achieve the goal of the study we used the following methods: a questionnaire, statistical data processing, including t-test, correlation analysis using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient (rs) for ordinal variables and Pearson's coefficient (rp) for quantitative variables, comparative analysis based on the Mann-Whitney rank test for nonparametric data and ordinal scales, ANOVA. Results. During the research a questionnaire consisting of three blocks of questions was developed, tested and distributed among the target audience. 568 students of grades 5-11 from 54 regions of the Russian Federation took part in the survey. Correlation analysis of the data made it possible to reveal some factors which influence the Russian schoolchildren’s choice of the reading medium - digital or printed. Furthermore, the authors identified the features of schoolchildren’s subjective perception of digital reading and the factors determining this perception. Conclusions. The study identified factors which significantly affect the Russian children’s preference to read digitally: the type of text, the purpose of reading, the respondents’ age, their attitude to reading and the level of reading proficiency (according to self-report data). Children’s self-evaluation of digital reading showed that they identify both negative (increased fatigue, decreased interest in reading, etc.) and positive aspects of reading digital texts (efficiency of search reading). Keywords Reading; Digital reading; Reading medium; Preferences of reading medium; Reading self-evaluation; Reading practice; Russian schoolchildren

The Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ) is a measure of styles of eating. It is widely used in Russia for researches but there is not any adaptation and validation. This study aim was to test reliability of DEBQ and scales, check its internal structure and inspect a convergent validity. Reliability measure was Alpha Cronbach’s, Exploratory factor analysis was used for exploring internal structure. Exploratory factor analysis supported five-factor structure even after rotation. Then four items which had poor loadings were removed from analysis. Re-run EFA showed three-factor structure according three scales. Alpha Cronbach’s is 0.92.Cultural and sexual differences were found.

Measurement in social sciences implies that the measured feature is quantitative, or in other words that it is possible not only to arrange the values of any given attribute, but also to express the difference between ordered magnitudes using a certain unit of measurement. However the need to verify this basic assumption is often ignored. And though there are a few possible excuses for this, but fundamentally this neglect distracts the social sciences from its main task of exploring reality. In this work, one of the requirements for the ordinal structure of motives was checked, namely the requirement of transitivity: if a > b and b > c, then a > c. If transitivity is not observed, then motives cannot be evaluated even on an ordinal scale (“more – less”, “stronger – weaker”), not to mention their quantitative measurement, which all methods that use Likert scales are supposedly tailored to. On a sample of 250 students, it was shown that about half of the respondents established transitivity when arranging their motives (internal, external and social ones), which justifies the use of ordinal scales for motivation assessment, at least for these motives and for two values: “more” and “less”; however, even in these cases, further validation of the assumptions about additivity when it comes to measuring motives is required to justify the use of Likert scales. The other part of the respondents (about 40%) could neither distinguish nor arrange their motives, therefore not only measuring, but even defining the order of their motives in these cases is impossible. It is concluded that the transitivity error is associated with the individual characteristics of the respondents and requires further study as a systematic error.