The authors center their presentation of material around a conceptual understanding of psychometric issues, such as validity and reliability, and on purpose rather than procedure, the "why" rather than the "how to." Their goal is to introduce psychometric principles at a level that is deeper and more focused than found in introductory…

Presents an approach (designed for beginners) to using PROC CALIS, a Statistical Analysis System (SAS) procedure, to perform path analyses using observed variables. The approach begins with the development of a figure to illustrate the researcher's theoretical model, and then converts the figure into a PROC CALIS program. (SLD)

Whenever one uses ordinary least squares regression, one is making an implicit assumption that all of the independent variables have been measured without error. Such an assumption is obviously unrealistic for most social data. One approach for estimating such regression models is to measure implied coefficients between latent variables for which…

The purpose of this paper is to help higher education institutions determine how well their institutional effectiveness models match the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Institutions of Higher Education Criterion Four requirements. The paper describes each of the major requirements as a domain in a matrix with…

Several methods of assessing test item bias are described, and the concept of fair use of tests is examined. A test item is biased if individuals of equal ability have different probabilities of attaining the item correct. The following seven general procedures used to examine test items for bias are summarized and discussed: (1) analysis of…

This article suggests the use of structural equation modeling in special education research, to analyze multivariate data from both nonexperimental and experimental research. It combines a structural model linking latent variables and a measurement model linking observed variables with latent variables. (Author/DB)