Abstracts - Earli

examinations of socially differentiated students, and as such they may alter the pattern of relationbetween social class and success.J 230 August 2007 17:00 - 18:20Room: -1.62Paper SessionAssessment methodsChair:Kari Smith, University of Bergen, NorwayResponse shift bias in mechanical trainingTanja Schmied, Swiss Federal Institute for Vocational... (SFIVET), SwitzerlandLars Balzer, Swiss Federal Institute for Vocational... (SFIVET), SwitzerlandThere is far less research in the field of vocational educational training (VET) than in generalschool education. Moreover, existing VET research is mostly focussing on the schooling part, noton the practical training part in the enterprise. In a longitudinal study we are interested in differenttraining practices of mechanical training at the workplace (project QuWibB, http://www.quwibb.info).This paper focuses on a methodological problem, the response shift bias. Generally speaking,response shift bias means that because people develop a different judgement background from onemeasurement wave to the next one (because new knowledge is built during the training-time), theyjudge their skills in the training-area at the beginning and at the end in a very similar way, thoughobjectively an improvement could be measured. Therefore, this paper asks the following question:. Does a response shift bias occur? If yes, in which way and with which consequences for the useof data? Among others, we used a questionnaire to ask for the currently experienced jobcharacteristics at both measurement waves. In view of our research goal, we also askedretrospective questions. This is a method to control the response shift bias. Results show that thereis evidence for a response shift bias. Trainees don`t judge job characteristics in the same way forcurrent and retrospective view. But the differences are not systematic. For some groups of trainees(first and second year trainees) there is an overestimation (higher values in the currentmeasurement than in the retrospective one), for other groups (third year) it is the other way round.There are also interesting correlation findings. Especially in the domain of competencies we findsignificantly higher correlations with retrospective than with current motivating potential. Resultsand significance for the field will be discussed.Empirical investigation of the Multiple Intelligences Profiling Questionnaire’s EnvironmentalSensitivity ScaleKirsi Tirri, University of Helsinki, FinlandPetri Nokelainen, University of Helsinki, FinlandIn this study, we extend the Multiple Intelligence Profile Questionnaire (MIPQ, Tirri andKomulainen, 2002) based on Gardner’s (1983, 1991, 1999) MI theory with EnvironmentalIntelligence (EnI) dimension that is based on the Environmental Sensitivity Scale (EnSS). Theoperationalisation of both scales was tested with an empirical sample of Finnish preadolescents,adolescents and adults (N=496). First, we studied if nine EnSS items reflect the three categories of– 535 –