Content uploaded by Tianlan (Elaine) Wei
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Tianlan (Elaine) Wei on Jan 18, 2015
Content may be subject to copyright.
International Journal of Doctoral Studies Volume 10, 2015
Cite as: Wei, T., Sadikova, A. N., Barnard-Brak, L., Wang, E. W., & Sodikov, D. (2015). Exploring graduate students’
attitudes towards team research and their scholarly productivity: A survey guided by the theory of planned behavior.
International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 10, 1-17. Retrieved from http://ijds.org/Volume10/IJDSv10p001-
017Wei0558.pdf
Editor: Michael Jones
Submitted: February 5, 2014; Revised: December 5, 2014; Accepted: December 6, 2014
Exploring Graduate Students’ Attitudes towards
Team Research and Their Scholarly Productivity:
A Survey Guided by the Theory of
Planned Behavior
Tianlan Wei
Mississippi State University,
Mississippi State, MS, USA
ewei@colled.msstate.edu
Alime N. Sadikova
South Hills High School,
Fort Worth, Texas, USA
alime.sadikova@fwisd.org
Lucy Barnard-Brak and
Eugene W. Wang
Texas Tech University,
Lubbock, Texas, USA
lucy.barnard-brak@ttu.edu;
eugene.wang@ttu.edu
Dilshod Sodikov
Academy of Dallas,
Dallas, Texas, USA
denis.sodikov87@gmail.com
Abstract
This study explores the attitudinal and motivational factors underlying graduate students’
attitudes towards team research. Guided by the Theory of Planned Behavior, we hypothesize that
attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control are three major determinants of
graduate students’ intentions to conduct team research. An instrument was developed to measure
the influences of these factors on students’ intentions and relevant scholarly productivity. A total
of 281 graduate students from a large, comprehensive university in the southwest United States
participated in the survey. Descriptive statistics reveal that around two-thirds of graduate
students have no co-authored manuscripts submitted for publication since they started graduate
school. Factor analyses validated the factor structure of the instrument, and the results of
Structural Equation Modeling show that (a) graduate students’ attitudes towards team research
have a positive correlation with their attitudes towards individual research; (b) attitude towards
team research, subjective norm, and
perceived behavioral control, along with
students’ discipline/major areas and
classification, account for 58% of the
variance in the intention to conduct team
research; and (c) subjective norm
appears to be the most influential factor
in the model, followed by attitude; while
perceived behavioral control is not of
much importance. These findings
provide implications for academic
Material published as part of this publication, either on-line or
in print, is copyrighted by the Informing Science Institute.
Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these
works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee
provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit
or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice
in full and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is per-
missible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. To
copy in all other cases or to republish or to post on a server or
to redistribute to lists requires specific permission and payment
of a fee. Contact Publisher@InformingScience.org to request
redistribution permission.
Graduate Students’ Attitudes towards Team Research
2
departments and programs to promote graduate students’ team research. Specifically, creating a
climate for collaborative research in academic programs/disciplines/universities may work jointly
with enhancing students’ appraisals of such collaborations.
Keywords: graduate student, team research, scholarly productivity, the theory of planned
behavior, attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, intention
Introduction
Graduate students’ scholarly productivity is critical to their future careers. Graduate education is
considered to “put a great emphasis on research skills and research-based decision making that is
beyond the capabilities of most undergraduate students” (Moore, Tatum, & Sebetan 2011, p. 67);
Posselt and Black (2012) also noted that the mission of postgraduate education is the training of
the next generation of researchers. Therefore, expectations are placed upon graduate students
with regard to their scholarly productivity. For example, many leading academic departments
have required their graduate students to publish at least one or two research articles in scholarly
journals as part of their graduation requirements (Lei & Chuang, 2009). Although universities
may have different requirements for master’s and doctoral students, Bourke and Holbrook (2013)
indicated that their research theses are not evaluated using qualitatively different criteria, though
doctoral students in general receive higher quality grading. Based on a U.S. sample consisting of
both master’s and doctoral students, Barrick, Easterly, and Rieger (2011) also found that the larg-
est portion of these graduate students indicate their career goals to be in research and develop-
ment. A graduate student, whether pursing a master’s or doctorate degree, gets immersed in a
research-oriented environment upon entering graduate school.
Naturally, these research-oriented environments differ in the level of collaboration. Collaboration
is defined as “the coming together of diverse interests and people to achieve a common purpose
via interactions, information sharing, and coordination of activities” (Jassawala & Sashittal, 1998,
p. 239). In a graduate school setting, new incoming students tend to be more technology ad-
vanced than the existing faculty, and the existing faculty and graduate student population is more
diverse in terms of needs, expectations, backgrounds, and levels of commitment and interests.
The acquisition of knowledge and skills is thereby an important function of collaboration, and
graduate students may benefit from participating in team research. As Fox (1991) described re-
search as a highly social and political process of communication, interaction, and exchange, grad-
uate students may better fulfill their ambitions through participating in team research. With the
involvement of graduate students, research teams are beneficial in terms of research output as
well as students’ personal developments. An example was given by Hilvers (2012) about the re-
search teams at the Loyola University’s Centre for Urban Research and Learning, which had
completed 150 research projects since 1996. Most of these teams included community partners,
faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and staff. Graduate students were the ones who
served as engines of these teams and faculty and community partners were there only when need-
ed. Graduate students processed daily work, mentored undergraduate team members, contacted
professors and community partners as needed, and worked closely with the staff of the Centre.
Considering the cost of having professors and community partners do all research work and how
little time they had, the Centre encouraged all parties to engage graduate students in research.
Team research experiences provided a great opportunity for graduate students to learn by prac-
tice. Such practices are described by Hilvers (2012) as “throwing graduate students into the ‘deep
end’ of research as a way of teaching them to swim” (p. 22).
Every discipline has its own context and approach to graduate student preparation (Becher, 1984;
B. R. Clark, 1987). Particularly, each program has its specific way of conducting research, keep-
ing balance between teaching and research, and the level of collaboration among scholars. While
a professor of history or English tends to conduct research alone, a professor of medicine or engi-
Wei, Sadikova, Barnard-Brak, Wang, & Sodikov
3
neering is more likely to work with a group of colleagues or graduate students (Austin, 2002).
Further, some graduate programs and students themselves build their graduate curricula based on
societal expectations. For instance, while a doctoral student of chemistry will likely have a better
chance to get a job if he or she has laboratory experiences of team research, a doctoral student of
education will likely be more marketable if he or she has experience in teaching college level
classes as well as first-author publications. Hence, research on collaborative research must take
into account the disciplinary effects for addressing their focal questions.
Theoretical Framework
Our review of the literature revealed several issues in the field of team/collaborative research.
First of all, the data of many studies were derived from personal reflections (e.g., Blumer, Green,
& Palmanteer, 2007; Bryan, Negretti, Christensen, & Stokes, 2002; Lee & Mitchell, 2011), thus
being qualitative in nature. We consider quantitative investigations to be necessary to supplement
the existing knowledge body. Next, the early studies have mostly focused on the scholarly
productivity of university faculty (e.g., Blackburn, Behymer, & Hall, 1978; Bland & Ruffin,
1992; Bland & Schmitz, 1986), and there are few investigations focusing on graduate students as
a particular population. Even though the past two decades have witnessed the emergence of re-
search on the collaborative research among undergraduate and graduate students, the bulk of the
research attempts to identify team or environmental characteristics for productive, successful re-
search teams. These characteristics include team organization and operation (e.g., Hulse-Killacky
& Robison, 2005; Lee & Mitchell, 2011; Li, Zhu, & Wang, 2010; Turner, 2006; Waldron, Shat-
tuck, Zimbrick, Finter, & Edwards, 2007), member characteristics (e.g., Blumer et al., 2007; Wan
Mohamed, Omar, Ahmad, & Juned, 2012), and process of bonding (e.g., Bryan et al., 2002). Ar-
guably, these studies all assume the active roles of graduate students in team research while leav-
ing out the graduate population who hover, still debating over the costs and benefits of team re-
search. Hence, there appears to be a gap in research with regard to graduate students’ decisions
on whether or not to participate in research teams, specifically, whether they perceive team re-
search as positive and beneficial experience in their academic lives.
While several theoretical perspectives are available for the present study, Bandura’s (1977, 1986)
social cognitive theory provides a most pertinent basis for our investigations. Based on our litera-
ture review, an individual researcher is influenced by both environmental and personal character-
istics (Blackburn et al., 1978; Bland & Ruffin, 1992; Cameron & Blackburn, 1981). For exam-
ple, Bland and Ruffin (1992) identified several characteristics of a productive research team such
as distinctive culture, positive group climate, and concentration on recruitment and selection; in
the meantime, a team member should also possess personal characteristics such as personal moti-
vation, research training, early scholarly habits, socialization to academic values, network of pro-
ductive colleagues, and resources (Bland & Schmitz, 1986; S. M. Clark & Corcoran, 1985). As
such, the interplay between the environmental and personal factors is critical in understanding
researchers’ development through collaborative research. The social cognitive theory depicts
people as self-organizing and proactive rather than merely reactive to social environmental or
inner forces (Zimmerman & Schunk, 2003). In addition to personal and environmental determi-
nants, behaviors are also included in Bandura’s (1977) triadic reciprocal causation model. As
Bandura (1986) stated, “what people think, believe, and feel affects how they behave” (p. 25).
Taken into the current context, graduate students’ attitudes towards team research may affect how
they organize personal and environmental resources to perform research activities. Graduate stu-
dents’ attitudes, appraisals, and other motivational factors are therefore worth researchers’ atten-
tion.
Guided by the theory of planned behavior (TPB; Ajzen, 1988, 1991), the present study aimed to
examine the attitudinal and motivational factors underlying graduate students’ perception of team
Graduate Students’ Attitudes towards Team Research
4
research and to explore how these factors may predict their decisions and behaviors. Closely re-
lated the social cognitive framework, the theory of planned behavior (TPB) was derived from the
expectancy-value theory (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980; Atkinson, 1964), which was designed to ac-
count for the incentive motivation people use to guide their actions for acquiring corresponding
outcomes of their behaviors. Essentially, the expectancy-value theory postulates that the strength
of motivation is governed jointly by the expectation that particular actions will produce specified
outcomes, and the perceived value of those outcomes (Bandura, 1997). The TPB took one step
beyond the expectancy-value theory by adding a new component: perceived behavioral control.
According to Ajzen (1991), the view of perceived behavioral control is most compatible with
Bandura’s (1977, 1982) concept of perceived self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is a key component in
Bandura’s (1997) social cognitive theory, which refers to beliefs in one’s capabilities to organize
and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments. As Ajzen (1991) stated,
the expectancy-value theory formulations were found to be only partly successful for predicting
behaviors, and adding perceived behavioral control into the model helps predict behaviors with
much higher accuracy.
Intention is a central factor in the TPB, which can be construed as the indication of how much
effort individuals are planning to exert in order to perform the behavior (Ajzen, 1991). The high-
er the intention, the better chances of the behavior being performed are. In other words, intention
is the immediate antecedent of the behavior. In the TPB, the three determinants of intention are
named attitude towards the behavior, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control (Ajzen,
1988, 1991). Attitude towards the behavior refers to an individual’s evaluation or appraisal of the
behavior; subjective norm refers to the perceived social pressure to perform or not to perform the
behavior; and perceived behavioral control refers to the perceived level of difficulty of perform-
ing the behavior.
To date, the TPB has been widely used in social psychology to associate the way a person thinks
with the resulting behaviors. Armitage and Conner (2001) meta-analyzed 185 TPB studies and
found that the TPB accounted for 27% of the variance in behavior and 39% of the variance in
intention. Similarly, Cooke and Sheeran (2004) meta-analyzed 44 TPB studies and reported that
attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control accounted for 39 to 42% of the vari-
ance in intention, while intention and perceived behavioral control predicted between 28 to 34%
of the variance in behavior. In the area of team/collaborative research, Li et al. (2010) adopted
the TPB to explore the influencing factors of the intention to share tacit knowledge in the univer-
sity research team. Their findings, however, are primarily concerned about one specific aspect of
team research (i.e., share of tacit knowledge), thus bearing little relevance to the present study.
The present study was conducted to address to the following research questions:
1. What is the relationship between graduate students’ attitudes towards individual research
and their attitudes towards team research?
2. Does the theory of planned behavior (TPB) provide a viable formulation to account for
graduate students’ intentions and behaviors to produce research?
3. How do the predictors of the TPB (i.e., attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behav-
ioral control) relate with each other and contribute to the outcome variables (i.e., intention and
behaviors)?
We hypothesized, based on the literature, that (a) attitude towards individual research negatively
correlates with attitude towards team research, (b) the TPB provides a viable model to account for
graduate students’ intention to produce research through teamwork, and (c) attitude towards team
research, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control are three indispensable determinants
Wei, Sadikova, Barnard-Brak, Wang, & Sodikov
5
of intention, and further, intention and perceived behavioral control significantly predict behav-
iors (Ajzen, 1991).
Method
Participants
A total of 281 participants from a large, comprehensive south-western university in the United
States responded to our survey. The participants were gathered through either email notice or
face-to-face recruitment to form a convenience sample. A large proportion (37.7%, n = 106) of
our sample reported being international students and 34.2% (n = 96) reported that they spoke
English as a non-primary language. Among the participants, 50.2% (n = 141) reported being
master’s students, 47.0% (n = 132) being doctoral students, 0.8% (n = 2) being “Others”, and
2.1% (n = 6) with classification data missing. The average age was 30.2 years old (SD = 10.2).
Approximately 52.7% (n = 148) of the participants were male, 44.8% (n = 126) were female, and
2.5% (n = 7) with gender information missing. In terms of ethnicity, 50.2% (n = 141) reported
being White, followed by 25.3% (n = 71) Asian, 9.3% (n = 26) Hispanic, 5.3% (n = 15) African
American, 6.0% (n = 17) “Others,” and 3.9% (n = 11) with ethnicity information missing. Partic-
ipants came from primarily two disciplines: engineering (41.6%, n = 117) and education (38.8%,
n = 109). Other disciplines represented in this study were human sciences (5.3%), architecture
(3.9%), agricultural sciences (2.1%), arts and sciences (1.4%), visual and performing arts (1.1%),
and business administration (0.7%). Approximately 5.0% (n = 14) of the participants did not
have or endorse a major area.
Measures
A survey questionnaire was developed to collect academic/demographic information and
measures of the TPB. The first section included questions regarding degree being pursued, major
field, age, gender, ethnicity, international student status, and English proficiency. The second
section included the TPB items designed to evaluate individuals’ attitudes towards individual re-
search, attitudes towards team research, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and in-
tentions to produce research through teamwork. Finally, Behavior was indexed by the number of
co-authored manuscripts the participant had submitted since he started graduate school.
The TPB items were developed based on Fishbein and Ajzen’s (2010) suggestions on the con-
struction of a TPB questionnaire. The behavior of interest was identified as publishing perfor-
mance, specifically, the engagement in literature review, data collection, and manuscript prepara-
tion. Next, about 10 items were created for each TPB factor, and a content expert was recruited
to assess the face validity and provide suggestions on wording changes. Finally, the items were
piloted and a number of them were dropped because of limited relevance. As a result, 45 TPB
items were retained. Participants were asked to rate each item on a 7-point bipolar adjective scale
(e.g., 1-strongly disagree to 7-strongly agree, 1-worthless to 7-valuable, 1-very unimportant to 7-
very important).
Procedure
The data for this study were collected using both an online survey platform (SelectSurvey.NET)
and scannable paper and pencil forms with identical question items. To balance the proportions
of social science and applied science students, the target population mainly involved graduate
students majoring in education or engineering. An email invitation with the link to the online
survey was sent to graduate students, and questionnaires were also handed to graduate students in
a face-to-face classroom setting. Participation in this study was completely anonymous and vol-
Graduate Students’ Attitudes towards Team Research
6
untary. Approximately 49.8% (n = 140) of the participants responded to the online survey and
50.2% (n = 141) filled out our paper and pencil forms.
Results
Descriptive Statistics
All 281 participants reported having submitted a mean of 1.05 co-authored manuscripts for publi-
cation since they started graduate school (SD = 5.21). In terms of breakdown according to demo-
graphic background, males reported a mean of 0.82 (SD = 1.66) while females reported a mean of
1.39 (SD = 7.67); domestic students reported a mean of 1.14 (SD = 6.57) while international stu-
dents reported a mean of 0.99 (SD = 1.78); master’s students’ reported a mean of 0.49 (SD =
1.40) while doctoral students reported a mean of 1.76 (SD = 7.55). Nonetheless, these results
must be interpreted with caution because the data were positively skewed at p < .01 (Field, 2009)
with only a few participants (n = 12, 4.3%) having over five co-authored submissions, as well as
a majority of participants (n = 180, 64.1%) having no submission at all. A less biased statistic
was thus the median, which was 0 among all participants.
Factor Analysis
Prior to factor analysis, the data were screened for multicollinearity and multivariate outliers in
SPSS v19. Bivariate correlation coefficients were computed among the 45 TPB items and there
was no evidence of multicollinearity (r > .80). Cook’s distances were then computed and there
were no significant multivariate outliers (Cook’s distance > 1) (Cook & Weisberg, 1982).
Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is typically used earlier in the process of instrument develop-
ment to determine the appropriate number of common factors (Brown, 2006). A principal axis
factoring analysis (EFA) with promax rotation was conducted on the 45 items. Promax rotation
allows for factors to be correlated (Field, 2009), and the assumption was made that the factors in
the TPB model were related. To determine the number of factors, we examined both the eigen-
values (Kaiser, 1960) and the scree plot for points of inflection (Field, 2009). The initial analysis
yielded 11 factors with eigenvalues greater than 1. However, consistent with what was indicated
by the inflection point, only six factors had eigenvalues greater than 1 after rotation. Using Gor-
such’s (1997) criteria to count only the number of factors with three or more salient loadings (i.e.,
|λ| > .40), we dropped the sixth factor with one salient factor loading. In addition, we dropped
items that had salient loadings on more than one factor. A 5-factor simple structure was achieved
as a result. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure verified the sampling adequacy for the analysis,
KMO = .80, which is between “good” and “great” according to Hutcheson and Sofroniou’s
(1999) criteria. All five factors in combination explained 51.30% of the variance. Table 1 shows
the factor loadings after rotation and the internal consistency reliabilities (Cronbach’s α) of each
factor. Except for Attitude towards Individual Research (α = .90), the other four factors were in
line with the theory of planned behavior (TPB): Attitude towards Team Research (α = .89), Sub-
jective Norm (α = .77), Perceived Behavioral Control (α = .76), and Intention to Produce Re-
search through Teamwork (α = .82). In addition, Table 1 also presents the descriptive statistics
which illustrate the shape of the distribution of each factor. All five factors appear to be negative-
ly skewed, meaning that respondents tend to endorse the higher-order options of the items; but
only the skewness of Attitude towards Team Research and Subjective Norm is statistically signif-
icant (Field, 2009). Nevertheless, the two factors still demonstrated sufficient disparity in their
distributions as revealed by the histograms and boxplots. This solution used 32 (71%) of the
original 45 items.
7
Table 1. Factor Loadings for Exploratory Factor Analysis with Promax Rotation
Items
Rotated Factor Loadings
Attitude
(Individual)
Attitude
(Team)
Subjective
Norm
(Team)
Control
(Team)
Intention
(Team)
AI1 Collecting data by myself is [worthless--valuable].
.82
-.07
.01
.21
-.01
AI2 Writing literature review by myself is [worthless--valuable].
.81
-.01
.08
-.02
-.07
AI3 Working by myself on a manuscript is [worthless--valuable].
.78
.10
-.20
.03
.11
AI4 Working by myself on a manuscript [teaches nothing--teaches more than class].
.75
-.05
-.03
-.12
.10
AI5 Writing literature review by myself [teaches nothing--teaches more than class].
.72
-.07
.12
-.21
.05
AI6 Collecting data by myself is [harmful--beneficial].
.68
.00
-.06
.01
-.10
AI7 Collecting data by myself [teaches nothing--teaches more than class].
.60
.00
-.08
.19
.14
AI8 Working by myself on a manuscript is [harmful--beneficial].
.60
.09
-.12
-.15
-.01
AT1 Collaborating on the literature review is [harmful--beneficial].
-.14
.89
-.36
.00
.13
AT2 Collaborating on the literature review [teaches nothing--teaches more than class].
-.01
.87
-.22
-.15
.14
AT3 Collaborating on the literature review is [worthless--valuable].
-.05
.83
-.21
.06
.10
AT4 Collaborating with others on a manuscript [teaches nothing--teaches more than class].
.01
.63
.30
-.16
-.17
AT5 Collaborating with others on a manuscript is [harmful--beneficial].
.09
.55
.24
.02
.01
AT6 Collecting data with a research team is [harmful--beneficial]
-.03
.45
.14
.17
-.02
AT7 Collecting data with a research team is [worthless--valuable].
.16
.43
.26
.14
-.12
AT8 Collaborating with others on a manuscript is [worthless--valuable].
.12
.43
.38
.12
-.18
AT9 Collecting data with a research team [teaches nothing--teaches more than class].
.10
.43
.28
.15
-.14
S1 In my field, people usually conduct research in teams.
-.07
-.15
.79
-.12
.06
S2 Compared with a single-authored manuscript, it is easier to get a co-authored manuscript
published. -.06 .13 .60 -.20 .09
S3 My future employers will want me to have good, productive research team experience.
-.07
-.04
.59
.04
.34
S4 In my field, it is believed that research team experience increases productivity.
-.10
.05
.56
.08
.19
S5 At the research conferences I attended (or plan on attending), the bulk of the work pre-
sented comes from teams. .01 -.13 .50 -.08 .08
C1 It will be difficult to apply my ideas into the research when I work with a team.a
.01
-.08
-.04
.85
.10
C2 I feel that working in a team will understate my own efforts.a
.17
-.01
-.22
.82
.04
C3 It is hard for me to keep motivated when working with a research team.a
-.02
.02
-.02
.63
-.09
C4 I am most productive when I work by myself.a
-.27
-.03
.09
.51
-.04
C5 Having complete control of the final product works best for me.a
-.13
.12
-.16
.50
-.01
I1 I intend to submit a research manuscript for publication before graduation.
.03
-.01
.10
-.08
.66
I2 In the coming year, with a professor's help, I will collect data for a research project other
than the one for my thesis/dissertation. .05 .04 .24 .11 .66
I3 I plan to submit manuscripts for publication before my graduation.
.09
.01
-.08
-.07
.66
I4 Authoring a peer reviewed publication before getting my degree is important.
-.07
.09
.35
.00
.63
I5 In the coming year, my research team will collect data for a research project other than
the one for my thesis/dissertation. .06 .00 .23 .09 .62
Eigenvalues
5.95
5.13
3.06
1.24
1.04
% of variance
18.6
16.03
9.55
3.88
3.23
Cronbach’s α
.90
.89
.77
.76
.82
Mdnb
0.02
0.10
0.11
0.07
0.14
Skewness (SE)
-0.28 (.18)
-0.71 (.18)
-0.48 (.18)
-0.32 (.18)
-0.31 (.18)
Note. Factor loadings > .40 are in boldface.
aThe items were reverse coded.
bDescriptive statistics of standardized factor scores (z).
Wei, Sadikova, Barnard-Brak, Wang, & Sodikov
9
A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was then conducted based on the five-factor EFA solution
with 32 items using Mplus v7 (Muthén & Muthén, 2012). According to Brown (2006), CFA is
used in later phases of instrument development after the underlying structure has been established
on prior empirical (EFA) grounds. The acceptable model fit for CFA was defined by Hu and
Bentler’s (1999) combinational rules: (a) Comparative Fit Index (CFI) or Tucker-Lewis Index
(TLI) > 0.95 and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) < .09, or (b) Root Mean
Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) < .05 and SRMR < .06. Because Mplus provides
Weighted Root Mean Square Residual (WRMR) instead of SRMR when the robust weighted
least squares estimator (WLSMV) is activated, the cutoff value of WRMR < 1.0 (Yu, 2002) was
also consulted. The initial CFA model did not indicate a good fit to the data, χ2(424) = 1220.52, p
< .0001, CFI = .780, TLI = .759, RMSEA = .085, 90% CI [.080, .091]. We consulted modifica-
tion indices (MIs) (Sörbom, 1989) and identified the main source of poor-fitting to be corrected
errors (Brown, 2006). For example, the correlated errors between Items AT1 and AT2 (see Table
1) produced the largest Δχ2= 48.97, and the correlated errors between Items AT1 and AT3 pro-
duced the second largest Δχ2 = 37.77. Given the very similar wording of these items, we deleted
items with lower factor loadings to minimize the influence of correlated errors without impairing
much of the measurement validity. As a result, Items AI1, AI4, AI5, AI6, AT1, AT2, AT9, S3,
S4, C4, I1, I3, and I4 (see Table 1) were removed, resulting in an acceptable measurement model:
χ2(125) = 186.49, p = .0003, CFI = .957, TLI = .947, RMSEA = .044, 90% CI [.030, .056],
SRMR = .053. This final measurement model retained 18 (40%) of the original 45 items. Using
Gorsuch’s (1983) criteria for validity coefficients (≥ .80), factor determinacy scores indicate that
all four factors are well measured: Attitude towards Individual Research (three items) = .99, Atti-
tude towards Team Research (six items) = .94, Subjective Norm (three items) = .85, Perceived
Behavioral Control (four items) = .89, and Intention (two items) = .92.
Correlations
Zero-order correlations were computed among the five factors based on the 18-item measurement
model. As shown in Table 2, graduate students’ attitudes towards individual research positively
correlated with both their attitudes towards team research (r = .17, p =.02) and their intentions to
produce research (r = .23, p < .01). Their attitudes towards team research, as expected, also posi-
tively correlated with other TPB factors: Subjective Norm (r = .38, p < .001), Perceived Behav-
ioral Control (r = .54, p < .001), and Intention (r = .29, p < .001). However, Perceived Behavior-
al Control only significantly correlated with Attitude towards Team Research (r = .54, p < .001),
but not with other factors.
Table 2. Zero-order Correlations among Five Factors in the Measurement Model
1
2
3
4
5
1. Attitude towards Individual Research
--
2. Attitude towards Team Research
.17*
--
3. Subjective Norm
-.13
.38***
--
4. Perceived Behavioral Control
-.13
.54***
.13
--
5. Intention
.23**
.29***
.41***
.03
--
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
The TPB Model
Our last step was to fit the TPB model (Ajzen, 1991) to the data using structural equation model-
ing (SEM) in Mplus v7 (Muthén & Muthén, 2012). Because Attitude towards Individual Re-
Graduate Students’ Attitudes towards Team Research
10
search only bears relevance to individual research but not team research, we excluded it while
retained the other four factors in the model, with both Intention and Behavior (i.e., number of co-
authored manuscripts) being the outcome factors. Due to a lack of variance and the severe skew-
ness of Behavior, we recoded Behavior into a dichotomous variable where 0 indicates no co-
authored manuscripts at all, and 1 indicates having at least one co-authored submission. As such,
the regression to Behavior is modeled as a probit regression. In addition, two covariates were
also included in the model: classification and discipline. To account for the disparity between
master’s and doctoral students with regard to their research intensity, classification was dummy
coded as master’s = 0 and doctoral = 1, whereas discipline was coded as education = -1, engineer-
ing = 1, others = 0 in order to contrast education and engineering for the disciplinary effects.
Figure 1. Final TPB model with estimated regression coefficients.
Note. Dashed lines denote hypothesized relations that are non-significant (“ns”).
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
Figure 1 presents the final model with regression parameters. This final model fit the data well:
χ2(126) = 187.73, p = .0003, CFI = 0.91, RMSEA = .042, 90% CI [.029, .054], WRMR = 0.81.
The correlations of the two covariates with the TPB factors are worth noting: discipline only sig-
nificantly correlated with Subjective Norm (r = .32, p < .001), but not other factors, while classi-
fication only correlated with Attitude toward Team Research (r = .13, p = .03). In other words,
graduate students of engineering majors rated Subjective Norm items significantly higher than
students of education majors, but the two disciplines do not differ significantly in Attitude or Per-
Perceived
Behavioral
Control
Discipline
Attitude
Subjective
Norm
Classification
Intention
R2 = .49***
Behavior
R2 = .29**
.40
**
.19
-.14
.14
.41
***
.17
.51
***
.32
***
.13
*
.39
***
.10
.53
***
Wei, Sadikova, Barnard-Brak, Wang, & Sodikov
11
ceived Behavioral Control. On the other hand, doctoral students tend to have more positive atti-
tudes than master’s students towards team research, but master’s and doctoral students do not dif-
fer in Subjective Norm and Perceived Behavioral Control. In addition, classification (β = .41, p <
.001) appears to have a significant impact on Intention, while discipline (β = .14, p = .14) does
not. Finally, the model explains 49% of the variance in Intention (p < .001) and 29% of the vari-
ance in Behavior (p = .001). While Intention is shown to be a significant predictor of Behavior (β
= .51, p < .001), Perceived Behavioral Control is not (β = .18, p = .07).
Discussion
Our quantitative investigations of graduate students’ attitudes towards team research yield mean-
ingful results that are worth discussing. First and foremost, the descriptive statistics do not indi-
cate high scholarly productivity among graduate students in terms of collaborative research. Par-
ticularly, the data are severely skewed with around two-thirds of students having no co-authored
manuscripts during their graduate study. Considering the general turnaround for publishing an
academic article, a median of 0 manuscript suggests that a large proportion of graduate students
may not have any co-authored publication by the time they graduate. Such low scholarly produc-
tivity is barely investigated in the literature, but research on graduate students’ development may
shed some light on it. Whitley, Oddi, and Terrell (1998) found that factors that influence publica-
tion efforts of graduate students include academic requirements, faculty involvement and support,
and the ability to self-select the research topic. Other findings echoed Whitley et al. (1998) that
graduate students’ scholarly productivity may be explained by both program- and personal-level
characteristics. For example, Cuthbert and Spark’s (2008) Australia-based observation indicates
that that there is a lack of graduate publication programs, which is partly due to “a lack of clarity
in universities about what the outcomes of graduate research education should be” (p. 78); while
an early study by Hogan (1986) indicated that both the quality of entering students and the faculty
publishing performance are positively correlated with students’ publishing performance. Evans
(2009) noted that developing a research culture and developing researchers are two inter-related
components of developing institutional research capacity. Because this interrelation may be in-
terpreted statistically that individual researchers are nested within their academic institutions, fu-
ture studies may consider using multilevel models to account for graduate students’ scholarly
output.
With respect to the theory of planned behavior (TPB), the findings of structural equation model-
ing partly support our hypotheses. First, in contrast to our hypothesis, graduate students’ attitudes
towards individual research and team research have a direct, rather than inverse, relationship.
This indicates that graduate students may appreciate the values of individual research and team
research simultaneously, and that they will not likely shy away from research teams in favor of
conducting research individually. In fact, the zero-order correlation between Attitude toward In-
dividual Research and Intention is also significantly positive, indicating that graduate students are
more likely to join research teams when they have positive appraisals of individual research.
Second, the final TPB model accounts for 49% of the variance in Intention, which appears to be
of a higher predictive accuracy than what has been reported (39-42%);(see Armitage & Conner,
2001; Cooke & Sheeran, 2004). However, we must note the significant contributions of the co-
variates, given that removing these covariates would have reduced the R2 to 26%. These findings
highlight the disparity between master’s and doctoral students in terms of their research intensity,
as well as a disciplinary effect in determining graduate students’ research intentions. Master’s
students, while perceiving similar levels of pressure to do team research as their doctoral counter-
parts, demonstrate significantly lower intentions to do so. In terms of the disciplinary effect, we
found it to be evident only in Subjective Norm. This finding is not surprising given that each dis-
cipline may have its unique norms in conducting research. As compared with students of educa-
tion, engineering students appear to perceive higher social pressure to join research teams, proba-
Graduate Students’ Attitudes towards Team Research
12
bly due to that they are more used to the scene of large-scale collaborative research (Austin,
2002). On the other hand, students’ appraisals and intentions about team research do not seem to
differ according to their disciplines. Third, the role of Perceived Behavioral Control in the model
is well worth some discussion: while Perceived Behavioral Control positively correlates with At-
titude towards Team Research in the model (r = .53, p < .001), none of its relationships with Sub-
jective norm, Intention, or Behavior is significant. In other words, graduate students who have
positive evaluations about team research will also perceive it easier to do research with teams
(i.e., they will be more confident in their capabilities of conducting team research); however,
those who perceive higher levels of social pressure to join research teams (e.g., “In my field, peo-
ple usually conduct research in teams”) will not likely be more confident about their capabilities
to collaborate with others on research. Fourth, attitude and perceived social pressure do not ap-
pear to be equally substantial in predicting Intention. This seems to that students’ decisions on
how they conduct research are mainly influenced by the norms in their academic programs, rather
than their appraisals of collaborative research or the evaluations of their own capabilities. Alt-
hough Ajzen (1991) argued that adding Perceived Behavioral Control enhances predictive accu-
racy of the TPB, this does not seem to be the case with team research.
We provide two alternative explanations for the inverse relationship of Perceived Behavioral
Control and Intention (β = -.14, p = .26). First, there may be a suppression effect (Cohen, Cohen,
West, & Aiken, 2003) which strengthens the relationship between Perceived Behavioral Control
and Intention. We need to note that such a strengthened association is statistically noticeable yet
conceptually meaningless (Feng & Wilson, 2007). The second explanation is of a conceptual
perspective: low levels of confidence in conducting team research (low Perceived Behavioral
Control) may also indicate lack of confidence in general research activities. Many coping models
indicate that individuals’ perception of stressful situations may influence their coping responses
(e.g., support seeking, avoidance; Olff, Langeland, & Gersons, 2005; Renner, Spivak, Kwon, &
Schwarzer, 2007; Yeh, Arora, & Wu, 2006). Hence, it may be that graduate students with lower
levels of confidence are more likely to find ways such as joining research teams to compensate
for their weaknesses. This may also explain why Perceived Behavioral Control is of little contri-
bution in the final TPB model.
Conclusion
Our findings provide implications for graduate programs that are determined to promote graduate
students’ research. Previous studies have demonstrated the benefits of collaborative research
(Hilvers, 2012; Ordóñez-Matamoros, Cozzens, & Garcia, 2010), and graduate programs may
work hard to encourage team research. The TPB postulates that, in addition to acknowledging
the value of a certain task and expecting positive outcomes of it, one also needs to be confident in
his capabilities to successfully perform the task. This does not hold in our analysis because grad-
uate students’ intentions to join research teams are not affected by their levels of confidence.
This may be good news to program chairs or other decision-makers that perceived difficulties or
struggles (e.g., authorship issues, conflicts of ideas) will not likely thwart students’ intentions to
join research teams. Rather, it is of much importance to create a climate of collaborative research
as well as to enhance graduate students’ appraisals of such collaborations. In fact, these two may
have a reciprocal relationship given their moderate positive correlation. When more research
teams are built in the department, particularly when the teams start to produce research, graduate
students will likely show higher intentions to join the teams despite that they may not be motivat-
ed to start a research project individually. Faculty members need to supervise the teams to bring
expertise to novice researchers, and the presence of faculty members also contributes to depart-
mental climate for collaboration (Hilvers, 2012). In order to promote team research among grad-
uate students, it may be particularly helpful to build research team exemplars with effective facul-
ty support.
Wei, Sadikova, Barnard-Brak, Wang, & Sodikov
13
Several limitations must be noted about this study. First, the TPB instrument has not been used in
previous studies, which naturally leads to concerns of its external validity. The internal con-
sistency reliabilities of some factors are barely acceptable, which has possibly impaired the pre-
dictive accuracy of the model. The instrument needs further revisions before being utilized for
future studies. The score distributions tend to be negatively skewed for most items, indicating
that the item thresholds may be too low. We consider a Rasch model (de Ayala, 2009) particular-
ly helpful in identifying this potential issue. Second, given the breakdown of disciplines (primari-
ly education and engineering), our sample may be homogeneous in terms of how they define and
conduct research. Although early studies in a particular area may benefit from a homogenous
sample for better control of confounding variables, the generalizability of our findings may be
limited. Future studies need to include other disciplines such as history, English, and other
STEM disciplines which may largely expand our understandings of graduate students’ team re-
search. Finally, number of co-authored manuscripts may not be the most accurate measure of
behaviors when behavior is defined as the manifest, observable response in a given situation in
Ajzen’s (1991) model. Because the present study is not longitudinal by nature, we were unable to
capture changes in behaviors after we measure participants’ intentions, nor could we conduct a
qualitative follow-up study to further explore the mechanisms underlying our findings. We col-
lected exiting numbers of publications based on Ajzen’s (1991) suggestion that single behavioral
observations can be aggregated across times to produce a more broadly representative measure,
though a follow-up study to measure their publications in next few years is desirable. Future
studies may consider longitudinal designs to overcome this limitation. Furthermore, number of
co-authored submissions, though being a relatively objective measure, does not capture other in-
dicators of publishing performance such as workload, individual contribution, order of author-
ship, or quality of the publication. Some of these indicators may be quantified while others may
not be, mixed-methods approaches may also be appropriate for future investigations in this area.
Specifically, an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design where quantitative data collection
and analysis is followed by qualitative inquiries and interpretations (Creswell & Plano-Clark,
2011) may be particularly meaningful for explaining the theoretical questions reflected in the cur-
rent study.
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by a grant from the College of Education, Texas Tech University.
References
Ajzen, I. (1988). Attitudes, personality, and behavior. Milton Keynes, England: Open University Press.
Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes, 50, 179-211.
Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. Englewood Cliff,
NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Armitage, C. J., & Conner, M. (2001). Efficacy of the theory of planned behaviour: A meta-analytic
review. British Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 471-499.
Atkinson, J. W. (1964). An introduction to motivation. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.
Austin, A. E. (2002). Preparing the next generation of faculty: Graduate school at socialization to the
academic career. Journal of Higher Education, 73(1), 94-122.
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review,
84, 191-215.
Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. American Psychologist, 37, 122-147.
Graduate Students’ Attitudes towards Team Research
14
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise control. New York, NY: Freeman.
Barrick, R. K., Easterly, R. G., & Rieger, M. W. (2011). Assessment of graduate student productivity and
satisfaction. NACTA Journal, 55(2), 54-60.
Becher, T. (1984). The cultural view. In B. R. Clark (Ed.), Perspectives on higher education: Eight
disciplinary and comparative views (pp. 165-194). Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of
California Press.
Blackburn, R. T., Behymer, C. E., & Hall, D. E. (1978). Research notes: Correlates of faculty publication.
Sociology of Education, 51, 132-141.
Bland, C. J., & Ruffin, M. T. (1992). Characteristics of a productive research environment: Literature
review. Academic Medicine, 67(6), 385-397.
Bland, C. J., & Schmitz, C. C. (1986). Characteristics of the successful researcher and implications for
faculty development. Journal of Medical Education, 19(1), 22-31.
Blumer, M. L., Green, M. S., & Palmanteer, D. (2007). Creating a collaborative research team: Feminist
reflections. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, 19(1), 41-55.
Bourke, S., & Holbrook, A. (2013). Examining PhD and research masters theses. Assessment and
Evaluation in Higher Education, 38(4), 407-416.
Brown, T. A. (2006). Confirmatory factor analysis for applied research. New York, NY: Guilford.
Bryan, L., Negretti, M., Christensen, F. B., & Stokes, S. (2002). Processing the process: One research
team's experience of a collaborative research project. Contemporary Family Therapy, 24(2), 333-353.
Cameron, S. W., & Blackburn, R. T. (1981). Sponsorship and academic career success. Journal of Higher
Education, 52(4), 369-377.
Clark, B. R. (1987). The academic profession. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Clark, S. M., & Corcoran, M. (1985). Individual and organizational contributions to faculty vitality: An
institutional case study. In S. M. Clark, & D. R. Lewis (Eds.), Faculty vitality and institutional
productivity: Critical perspectives for higher education (pp. 112-138). New York, NY: Teachers
College Press.
Cohen, J., Cohen, P., West, S., & Aiken, L. S. (2003). Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for
behavioral sciences. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Cook, R. D., & Weisberg, S. (1982). Residuals and influence in regression. New York, NY: Chapman &
Hall.
Cooke, R., & Sheeran, P. (2004). Moderation of cognition-intention and cognition-behaviour relations: A
meta-analysis of properties of variables from the theory of planned behaviour. British Journal of Social
Psychology, 43, 159-186.
Creswell, J. W., & Plano-Clark, V. L. (2011). Choosing a mixed methods design. In J. W. Creswell, & V.
L. Plano-Clark, Designing and conducting mixed methods research (pp. 53-106). Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
Cuthbert, D., & Spark, C. (2008). Getting a GRiP: Examining the outcomes of a pilot program to support
graduate research students in writing for publication. Studies in Higher Education, 33(1), 77-88.
de Ayala, R. J. (2009). The theory and practice of item response theory. New York, NY: The Guilford
Press.
Evans, L. (2009). Developing research capacity in the social sciences: A professionality based model.
International Journal for Researcher Development,, 1(2), 134-149.
Wei, Sadikova, Barnard-Brak, Wang, & Sodikov
15
Feng, H., & Wilson, S. R. (2007). An application of the theory of planned behavior to support provision
behaviors across cultures. Paper presented for the Intercultural Communication Division of the
National Communication Association, Chicago: IL.
Field, A. (2009). Discovering statistics using SPSS (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (2010). Predicting and changing behavior: The reasoned action approach. New
York, NY: Psychology Press.
Fox, M. F. (1991). Gender, environmental milieu, and productivity in science. In H. Zuckerman, J. R. Cote,
& J. T. Bruer (Eds.), The outer circle: Women in scientific community (pp. 188-204). New York, NY:
W. W. Norton.
Gorsuch, R. L. (1983). Factor analysis (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Gorsuch, R. L. (1997). Exploratory factor analysis: Its role in item analysis. Journal of Personality
Assessment, 68(3), 532-560.
Hilvers, J. (2012). Setting graduate education path for public sociology. In P. Nyden, L. Hossfeld, & G.
Nyden (Eds.), Public sociology: Research, action, and change (pp. 20-26). Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine
Forge Press/Sage Publications.
Hogan, T. D. (1986). The publishing performance of U.S. Ph.D. programs in economics during the 1970s.
Journal of Human Resources, 21(2), 216-229.
Hu, L., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis:
Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling, 6, 1-55.
Hulse-Killacky, D., & Robison, F. F. (2005). An effective research team method to influence research and
scholarly development. The Journal for Specialists in Group Work, 30(3), 241-252.
Hutcheson, G., & Sofroniou, N. (1999). The multivariate social scientist. London, UK: Sage.
Jassawala, A. R., & Sashittal, H. C. (1998). An examination of collaboration in high-technology new
product development processes. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 15, 237-254.
Kaiser, H. F. (1960). The application of electronic computers to factor analysis. Educational and
Psychological Measurement, 20, 141-151.
Lee, T. W., & Mitchell, T. R. (2011). Working in research teams: Lessons from personal experiences.
Management and Organization Review, 7(3), 461-469.
Lei, S. A., & Chuang, N. K. (2009). Research collaboration and publication during graduate studies:
Evaluating benefits and costs from students' perspectives. College Student Journal, 43(4), 1163-1168.
Li, Z., Zhu, T., & Wang, H. (2010). A study on the influencing factors of the intention to share tacit
knowledge in the university research team. Journal of Software, 5(5), 538-545.
Moore, M., Tatum, B. C., & Sebetan, I. (2011). Graduate education: What matters most? Journal of
Research in Innovative Teaching, 4(1), 65-77.
Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. O. (2012). Mplus user’s guide (7th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Muthén &
Muthén.
Olff, M., Langeland, W., & Gersons, B. P. (2005). Effects of appraisal and coping on the neuroendocrine
response to extreme stress. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 29, 457-467.
Ordóñez-Matamoros, H. G., Cozzens, S. E., & Garcia, M. (2010). International co-authorship and research
team performance in Columbia. Review of Policy Research, 27(4), 415-431.
Posselt, J. R., & Black, K. R. (2012). Developing the research identities and aspirations of first-generation
college students: Evidence from the McNair scholars program. International Journal for Researcher
Development, 3(1), 26-48.
Renner, B., Spivak, Y., Kwon, S., & Schwarzer, R. (2007). Does age make a difference? Predicting
physical activity. Psychology and Aging, 22, 482-493.
Graduate Students’ Attitudes towards Team Research
16
Sörbom, D. (1989). Model modification. Psychomertika, 54, 371-384.
Turner, M. M. (2006). The research team concept, II: (Still) an approach to graduate training. Community
Research Reports, 23(3), 225-230.
Waldron, V., Shattuck, R., Zimbrick, D., Finter, L., & Edwards, P. (2007). Community research team: An
experiment in member-driven research and reflection. LLI Review, 2, 44-53.
Wan Mohamed, M. F., Omar, Z., Ahmad, A., & Juned, R. (2012). Critical factors influencing the
effectiveness of research teams among academicians. Social Sciences and Humanities, 20(3), 695-706.
Whitley, G. G., Oddi, L. F., & Terrell, D. (1998). Factors influencing the publishing efforts of graduate
students in nursing. Journal of Nursing Education, 37(4), 182-185.
Yeh, C. J., Arora, A. K., & Wu, K. A. (2006). A new theoretical model of collectivistic coping. In P. T.
Wong, & L. C. Wong (Eds.), Handbook of multicultural perspectives on stress coping (pp. 55-72).
Dallas, TX: Spring Publications.
Yu, C. (2002). Evaluating cutoff criteria of model fit indices for latent variable models with binary and
continuous outcomes. (Doctoral dissertation). University of California, Los Angeles.
Zimmerman, B. J., & Schunk, D. H. (2003). Albert Bandura: The scholar and his contributions to
educational psychology. In B. J. Zimmerman, & D. H. Schunk (Eds.), Educational Psychology: A
Century of Contributions (pp. 431-457). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Biographies
Dr. Tianlan Wei is an Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology
in Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology, Mississippi
State University. She received her Bachelor's degree in Law from Fu-
dan University, China and her M.Ed. and Ph.D. in Educational Psy-
chology from Texas Tech University. Her research interests involve
gender differences/issues in learning and performance, academic inter-
est and affect in educational settings, and evaluation of psychometric
properties of educational measurements.
Dr. Alime Sadikova is an Assistant Principal at South Hills High
School at Fort Worth ISD. She began her career as a high school
teacher in 1997. In 2001, she became the founder and principal of the
private school named Encourse located in her home country, where she
worked for five years. During that time, Dr. Sadikova was one of the
top ten principals in the nation, ultimately providing her first oppor-
tunity to visit the United States and attend leadership training in Min-
nesota. In 2006, Dr. Sadikova returned to the United States as a Ful-
bright Scholar and earned three degrees from Texas Tech University:
Masters degrees in Applied Linguistics and Educational Leadership;
and Doctoral degree in Educational Leadership. At Texas Tech, she
also worked as research assistant for six years and was a president of
Education Graduate Student Organization for 2 years. Dr. Sadikova truly believes that every high
school graduate is college and career bound and will do her best to help students realize his or her
potential.
Wei, Sadikova, Barnard-Brak, Wang, & Sodikov
17
Dr. Lucy Barnard-Brak is an Associate Professor in the Educational
Psychology program, Texas Tech University. Her research currently
focuses measurement and assessment issues for vulnerable popula-
tions, especially individuals with disabilities. She currently enjoys re-
fining the application of item response theory models and the compari-
son of ROC curves to data from special populations.
Dr. Eugene Wang is an Associate Professor in Educational Psycholo-
gy at Texas Tech University, and serves as the Program Coordinator
for the Research, Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics (REMS)
concentration. He is also the Associate Director of the Institute for
Measurement, Methodology, Analysis, and Policy (IMMAP). He re-
ceived his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Psychology from East
Texas State University and his Ph.D. in Psychology from Texas A&M-
Commerce. His research areas have a broad focus on individuals with
emotional and behavioral disorders, assessment of risk (particularly
violence risk), and strategies for reducing interpersonal violence. He is
particularly interested in implementation of positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS)
in at-risk populations, such as incarcerated youth.
Dilshod Sodikov is social studies middle school teacher at Academy
of Dallas. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in English and Master’s
degree in Educational Psychology from Texas Tech University. He
also worked as a research assistant at the same university for two years.
Prior to this, he worked as social studies high school teacher in Uzbek-
istan.
