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Chong Ho Yu

Azusa Pacific University, Undergraduate Psychology, Faculty Member

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Papers by Chong Ho Yu

An Analysis of the Relationship Between Christian Faith and Mental Wellbeing Utilizing Item Response Theory

PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences, 2019

There is a growing concern that more and more American university students suffer from mental dis... more There is a growing concern that more and more American university students suffer from mental distress or disorder. Numerous prior studies have confirmed religious faith and practice to be a promising avenue for alleviating mental problems. Using item response theory (IRT), the current study aimed to verify this assertion with a sample of 436 university students. In this study, the independent variable is faith status/church attendance, which consists of four categories: "I continue to attend church and have faith in Christ," "I still attend church but have serious doubts of my faith in Christ," "I have not attended church for over one year but I maintain my faith in Christ," and "I am not attending church and have abandoned my faith in Christ." The dependent variable is the IRT's theta score derived from measures of mental issues in multiple dimensions, including anxiety, depression, loneliness, sadness, suicide attempts, anorexia, etc. For the entire sample, it was found that Christian faith and church attendance must be present together to generate a protective effect against mental distress. Participants who claimed themselves as faithful but did not attend church could not benefit from Christianity as a protective factor. When the sample was divided by gender and race, attending church and keeping faith active still protected students against mental diseases, but the magnitudes varied.

A crossover study of learner attitude towards use of audio in multimedia-based tutorials

Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference, Mar 3, 2008

... Multimedia presentations with text, graphics, and animations across various disciplines have ... more

Open source applications for training teachers in developing assessment systems

The effects of an integrated mindfulness-based tai chi chuan programme on sleep disturbance among community-dwelling elderly people: protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Trials

Background Many elderly individuals who experience sleep disturbances would consider complementar... more Background Many elderly individuals who experience sleep disturbances would consider complementary and alternative medicine as an alternative therapeutic option in light of the limitations of traditional treatments. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) and Tai Chi Chuan (TCC) are two alternative forms of complementary and alternative medicine. They both share the common feature of a focus on breathing but represent distinct approaches with different mechanisms and philosophical orientations. The trial described in this protocol aims to evaluate the effects of an integrated form of mindfulness-based Tai Chi Chuan (MBTCC) programme and the underlying mechanisms of the beneficial effects over a 12-month follow-up. Methods The planned study is a four-armed randomized controlled trial with repeated measures. A total of 256 community-dwelling older adults with sleep problems will be recruited and randomized into four groups: (1) an MBTCC group, (2) an MBI group, (3) a TCC group, and (4)...

$Research paper thumbnail of {"__content__"=>"Meta-Analysis of Polymorphisms with Air Pollution on the Risk of Ischemic Heart Disease Worldwide.", "i"=>{"__content__"=>"NOS3 G894T"}}$

{"__content__"=>"Meta-Analysis of Polymorphisms with Air Pollution on the Risk of Ischemic Heart Disease Worldwide.", "i"=>{"__content__"=>"NOS3 G894T"}}

Toxics, 2018

The purpose of this updated meta-analysis was to investigate the effect of nitric oxide synthase-... more The purpose of this updated meta-analysis was to investigate the effect of nitric oxide synthase-3 ( G894T polymorphisms, air pollution and their interaction on ischemic heart disease (IHD) risk across populations worldwide. Recursive partition trees, nonlinear association curve fit and geographic information system maps were incorporated to verify results of conventional pooled analyses for sources of heterogeneity. Results from 61 studies (16,219 cases, 12,222 controls) revealed a significant increased relative risk (RR) of IHD associated with 894 polymorphisms TT (RR = 1.44) and GT (RR = 1.37). Subgroup analysis revealed that the TT polymorphism genotype had significantly increased risk of IHD in Caucasian, East Asian, South Asian, and Middle Eastern populations (all < 0.05). It is important to point out that many countries demonstrated an average risk of greater than two, which identifies the 894 TT polymorphism as a potential causal factor and biological marker of IHD, based...

Data visualization of item-total correlation by median smoothing

This paper aims to illustrate how data visualization could be modeling, using an example with mul... more This paper aims to illustrate how data visualization could be modeling, using an example with multi item response theory and factor analysis to identify a psychometric model that investigates two or more latent traits. While it may seem convenient to accomplish two tasks by employing one procedure, users should be cautious of problematic items that affect both factor analysis and IRT. When sample sizes are extremely large, reliability analyses can misidentify even random number meaningful patterns. Data visualization, such as median smoothing, can be used to identify problematic items in preliminary data cleaning. Data visualization is an indispensable tool for pattern recognition in data analysis (

Blending Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

Creating Change to Improve Science and Mathematics Education, 2020

's education system regards students' motivation, both intrinsic and extrinsic, as the engine for... more 's education system regards students' motivation, both intrinsic and extrinsic, as the engine for students to navigate throughout their entire learning process. A professor at a Hong Kong university noted that Hong Kong schools take careful notice of students' interests and motivation, as they are "important factors in rendering students' effective learning". The authors, however, believe that the construct of motivation must be examined in its corresponding cultural contexts and social settings. It has been established through multiple international comparisons that Chinese and other Asian groups from the Confucian heritage exhibit higher academic performance than their Western counterparts. However, the economic explanation often used to explain differences in academic performance among Western students clearly does not explain the higher performance for Chinese students, both at the national and family levels. Despite the fact that some Chinese have fewer economic resources, they still devote tremendous efforts to climb up the social ladder by studying. Hence, sociocultural and motivational factors have drawn interest among scholars (Hau & Ho, 2010). First, it is common for Chinese students and their families to value high academic performance. Second, internationalized values and beliefs related to school accounts for success among these students more than merely personal interest. Extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation tend to occur simultaneously. Future research needs to move beyond the intrinsic versus extrinsic dichotomy in order to understand motivation within the Chinese cultural context. As discussed in Chap. 5, Chinese students do not tend to have overly high perceptions of their competence. Nevertheless, low competence perceptions may contribute positively to achievement, when their determination to succeed is high. 6.1 Debate on Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Motivation derived its meaning from the Latin word movere, which means "to move". A person with motivation acts toward an end that he or she projects as a satisfying

Reliability of self-report data

For research on Web-based instruction, web usage data may be obtained by parsing the user access ... more For research on Web-based instruction, web usage data may be obtained by parsing the user access log, setting cookies, or uploading the cache. However, these options may have limited applicability. For example, the user access log cannot track users who follow links to other websites. Further, cookie or cache approaches may raise privacy issues. In these situations, self-reported data collected by surveys are used. This gives rise to the question: How accurate are self-reported data? Cook and Campbell (1979) have pointed out that subjects (a) tend to report what they believe the researcher expects to see, or (b) report what reflects positively on their own abilities, knowledge, beliefs, or opinions. Another concern about such data centers on whether subjects are able to accurately recall past behaviors. Cognitive psychologists have warned that the human memory is fallible (Schacter, 1999) and thus the reliability of self-reported data is tenuous.

Creating Change to Improve Science and Mathematics Education

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more

The Ensemble and Model Comparison Approaches for Big Data Analytics in Social Sciences

Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation, 2018

Big data analytics are prevalent in fields like business, engineering, public health, and the phy... more Big data analytics are prevalent in fields like business, engineering, public health, and the physical sciences, but social scientists are slower than their peers in other fields in adopting this new methodology. One major reason for this is that traditional statistical procedures are typically not suitable for the analysis of large and complex data sets. Although data mining techniques could alleviate this problem, it is often unclear to social science researchers which option is the most suitable one to a particular research problem. The main objective of this paper is to illustrate how the model comparison of two popular ensemble methods, namely, boosting and bagging, could yield an improved explanatory model.

RUNNING HEAD : Irreducible complexity

In Darwin’s black box: The biochemical challenge to evolution , Dr. Michael Behe evaluated the po... more In Darwin’s black box: The biochemical challenge to evolution , Dr. Michael Behe evaluated the possibility of gradualism in macroevolution in the perspective of “irreducible complexity,” which became a controversial topic among theologians, philosophers, and scientists. This paper argues that efforts devoting to “reasoning by analogy” regarding the “mousetrap metaphor” could not illuminate the question at all. In addition, this paper argues that the debate on creation vs. evolution related to probability and law, the meaning of adequate explanation, and many others, is tied to hidden metaphysical assumptions on both parties. Irreducible complexity 3 Philosophical assumptions in the discussion of irreducible complexity, naturalism, demarcation criterion, probability, and law Chong Ho Yu Introduction In Darwin’s black box: The biochemical challenge to evolution (1996), Dr. Michael Behe evaluated the possibility of gradualism in macroevolution in the perspective of modern biochemistry....

Dissertation Topic: an Investigation of Causal Inferences of Structural Equation Modeling in Terms of Intervention, Counterfactual and Realness of Constructs

Many statisticians and social scientists subscribe to the view introduced by Cook and Campbell th... more Many statisticians and social scientists subscribe to the view introduced by Cook and Campbell that causal inferences can be supported by experimental data, while only descriptions can be supported by non-experimental data. Clark Glymour has challenged this view with his use of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Glymour, Pearl, Woodward, and a few other scholars have argued that manipulation and intervention do not necessarily happen at the experimental level; in SEM the researcher can still conduct interventions by including/excluding variables, and by manipulating the structure of the model that represents the data. Glymour and his associates developed an algorithm named TETRAD, a plug-in to standard SEM software programs , that is capable of exhausting all possible combinations of paths in an SEM model. This approach is based on Fisherian counterfactual reasoning, which strives to yield the best model after exploring all possible scenarios. It is noteworthy that persons who deba...

Moral monsters 2

Prominent philosopher of ethics Trudy Govier argued against the existence of moral monsters, peop... more Prominent philosopher of ethics Trudy Govier argued against the existence of moral monsters, people who had committed extreme crimes and could not be morally transformed. She asserted that one should hate the evil deeds but not the evil doer, because a human does not lose his/her humanity just because of what he/she did. She further argued that this approach conforms to the Christian tradition promoted by Bishop Tutu. This article examines Govier’s arguments in philosophical, religious, and psychological perspectives. It is suggested that separating the evil doer from the evil deeds is logically unacceptable. Moreover, the “compulsive lair argument” by Govier also does not free the agent from moral responsibilities. In addition, the notion of the non-existence of moral monsters is incompatible with traditional Biblical teaching. Although there is no conclusive evidence for supporting or denying the existence of moral monsters, the ideal of “moral saints” and the anti-ideal of “moral...

A cross-cultural comparison of the relationship between motivation and performance in math and science

A Multi-Disciplinary Inquiry of Secular and Christian Approaches to Sex Education

Journal of Research on Christian Education, 2018

Secular scholars have criticized Christian education and counseling on sex as restrictive, ineffe... more Secular scholars have criticized Christian education and counseling on sex as restrictive, ineffective, and outdated. The authors of the current study explored both common non-Christian and Christian approaches to human sexuality with reference to overarching domains of religion, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Secular approaches were classified as the inward approach, the spatial approach, and the temporal approach, whereas Christian approaches were categorized as the traditional and the modern perspectives. Although Christian faith can be signified as a protective factor against casual and risky sexual behaviors, traditional Christian values should be reevaluated in favor of comprehensive Christian approaches to sexuality, which embrace sexual desires as divine gifts for completeness of humanity.

Limitations and Prospects of Skyrmsian Evolutionary Game Theory in the Perspectives of Genotype Phenotype Mapping and Evolutionary Psychology

International Journal of Applied and Physical Sciences, 2018

Based upon evolutionary game theory, philosopher of science Brian Skyrms developed certain simula... more Based upon evolutionary game theory, philosopher of science Brian Skyrms developed certain simulationbased models to explain cultural phenomena for which alternate theories failed to offer plausible explanations. This article aims to examine the preceding claim by unpacking the logical structure of the Skyrmsian theory. Because the mathematical model employed by Skyrms is challenged by the author, the methodology of this study is analytical rather than mathematical simulation. The Skyrmsian approach is purely phenotypic rather than genotypic. Further, it is evolutionary generalist and thus omits the psychological mechanisms or the evolutionary histories from which humans emerge. To compensate for the lack of detail in describing psychological mechanisms, mathematical properties such as robustness are introduced in the Skyrmsian approach. This article illustrates how omitting genotypic factors and the interlocking attributes of phenotypic components might pull the Skyrmsian model away from reality. As a model of force that emphasizes the detail of psychological drives (forces), evolutionary psychology can play a vital role in defining input variables for the Skyrmsian approach, while the latter can function as an evaluation tool to assess the explanatory power of proposed models in terms of robustness. In the era of big data, it is possible for both evolutionary game theorists and evolutionary psychologists to extract robust behavioral patterns and social dynamics from voluminous data.

Meta-Prediction of MTHFR Gene Polymorphism Mutations and Associated Risk for Colorectal Cancer

Biological Research For Nursing, 2016

The methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase ( MTHFR) gene is one of the most investigated of the gene... more The methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase ( MTHFR) gene is one of the most investigated of the genes associated with chronic human diseases because of its associations with hyperhomocysteinemia and toxicity. It has been proposed as a prototype gene for the prevention of colorectal cancer (CRC). The major objectives of this meta-analysis were to examine the polymorphism-mutation patterns of MTHFR and their associations with risk for CRC as well as potential contributing factors for mutations and disease risks. This analysis included 33,626 CRC cases and 48,688 controls across 92 studies for MTHFR 677 and 16,367 cases and 24,874 controls across 54 studies for MTHFR 1298, comprising data for various racial and ethnic groups, both genders, and multiple cancer sites. MTHFR 677 homozygous TT genotype was protective ( p < .05) for CRC for all included populations; however, with heterogeneity across various racial–ethnic groups and opposing findings, it was a risk genotype for the subgroup...

Circular Dependency: Treatment Effectiveness Evaluation, Instrument Validation and Performance Appraisal

Introduction Psychological and educational research often is focused on treatment outcomes. Appro... more Introduction Psychological and educational research often is focused on treatment outcomes. Appropriate interpretation of treatment outcomes is based primarily on: (a) studying the efficacy of treatment, (b) the validity and reliability of instrumentation, and (c) obtaining subjects who represent a normal cross-section of the desired population to ensure accurate performance appraisal. However, in many quasi-experimental and non-experimental settings where experimental control is lacking, often each aspect mentioned above is studied simultaneously. This convolutes the focus of research as well as comprises the interpretation of results. For example, in research on Web-based instruction, test results are often used as an indicator of both the quality of instruction and the knowledge level of students. In addition, pilot studies are implemented to examine the usefulness of the treatment program and to validate the instrument based upon the same pilot results. To address this misapplic...

An Overview of Remedial Tools for the Violation of Parametric Test Assumptions in the Sas System

Parametric tests are widely applied by researchers in every discipline. However, sometimes the ap... more Parametric tests are widely applied by researchers in every discipline. However, sometimes the appropriateness of their applications is in question. In a parametric test an underlying distribution is assumed, and a sample statistic is obtained to estimate the population parameter. Because this estimation process involves a sample, a sampling distribution, and a population, certain assumptions are required to ensure that all components are compatible with each other. As a matter of fact, data collected in social sciences usually violate parametric assumptions to some degree. The objectives of this paper are to briefly explain why these violations are detrimental to research and to introduce what alternatives could be used in the SAS system to rectify the situation.

Misconceptions Misconceived relationships between logical positivism and quantitative research