Assessment and monitoring of safety in special education schools is imperative to establish and maintain a safe environment in which students can develop academic and social-emotional skills. The present study describes the development of a student self-report measure, the Safe at School questionnaire. Factorial validity, reliability and…

When cognitive and educational tests are administered under time limits, tests may become speeded and this may affect the reliability and validity of the resulting test scores. Prior research has shown that time limits may create or enlarge gender gaps in cognitive and academic testing. On average, women complete fewer items than men when a test…

The objective of this study was to develop and validate an instrument measuring the perception and interpretation of several distinct musical features (pitch, tonality, timing, loudness, and timbre). Therefore, we developed the Implicit Tonal Ability Test (ITAT), a listening test containing 49 multiple-choice items. A total of 233 children aged 6…

This study assessed the psychometric properties of the Dutch translation of the Prosocial Behavior Questionnaire (PBQ-NL), a self-report questionnaire that distinguishes altruistic, reactive, and proactive prosocial behaviours. Participants were 381 Dutch adolescents and young adults aged 13-30 (M[subscript age] = 18.62, SD = 2.59, 65.1% female).…

Over the last two decades, the educational use of digital devices, including digital assessments, has become a regular feature of teaching in primary education in the Netherlands. However, researchers have not reached a consensus about the so-called "mode effect," which refers to the possible impact of using computer-based tests (CBT)…

In the Netherlands, all schools are required to develop a wellbeing and social safeness policy. Despite this legislation, there is currently no adequate instrument available to measure the wellbeing and social safeness. Therefore, the present study investigates the psychometric properties of the Wellbeing and Social Safeness Questionnaire (WSSQ).…

The extent to which Theory of Mind (ToM) performance is influenced by cultural and gender differences remains a subject of debate. A sample of 324 Dutch and 511 Italian children (52% boys; 2.8-11.7 years; 50% boys; 2.6-10.3 years; respectively) was administered the ToM Storybooks. Analysis focused on indicators of nonlinearity: moving standard…

The Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (AMAS) is commonly used to compare groups on math anxiety. Group comparisons should however be preceded by a demonstration of metric and scalar measurement invariance, which is currently only available for undergraduate students in the USA. This study tested for metric and scalar measurement invariance of AMAS…

The Autism Spectrum Quotient is a widely used instrument for the detection of autistic traits. However, the validity of comparisons of Autism Spectrum Quotient scores between groups may be threatened by differential item functioning. Differential item functioning entails a bias in items, where participants with equal values of the latent trait…

Scientific reasoning refers to the thinking skills involved in conceiving and conducting an investigation. This study examined how proficiency in performing these skills develops during the upper-elementary school years. A sample of 157 children (age 7-10) took a performance-based scientific reasoning test in three consecutive years. Four distinct…

Research courses are part of many higher education curricula. However, students' attitudes towards statistics and research courses tend to be negative. One way to measure students' attitude is with the Revised-Attitudes Towards Research scale (R-ATR). The current study examined: (1) the internal reliability of the R-ATR, (2) the attitude of Dutch…

Standardised tests help measure student's progress at school and can inform education policy about existing shortfalls. However, too much testing could lead to much pressure on students and teachers to learn and teach for a test, something that would take the joy out of the learning process. Many parents and educators are all too familiar with…

Principals (policy makers) have debated the progress in U.S. student performance for a half century or more. Informing these conversations, survey agents have administered seven million psychometrically linked tests in math and reading in 160 waves to national probability samples of selected cohorts born between 1954 and 2007. This study is the…

The Video Engagement Scale (VES) is a quality indicator to assess engagement in experimental video-vignette studies, but its measurement properties warrant improvement. Data from previous studies were combined (N = 2676) and split into three subsamples for a stepped analytical approach. We tested construct validity, criterion validity,…

In large-scale assessments, performance differences across different groups are regularly found. These group differences (e.g., gender differences) are often relevant for educational policy decisions and measures. However, the formation of these group differences usually remains unclear. We propose an approach for investigating this formation by…