Despite the importance of evolution to understand biology, there is significant evidence that many biology teachers have difficulties to successfully teach this topic. The purpose of this study is to describe procedures by which a paper-and-pencil instrument to assess teachers' pedagogical content knowledge for evolution (PCK[subscript evo]) was…

This article describes the development and validation of a six-scale survey to assess school climate in terms of students' perceptions of the degree to which they feel welcome and connected, together with a scale to assess students' perceptions of bullying. The development of each survey involved a multi-stage approach, including: 1) an extensive…

The Outgroup Prejudice Index is a six-item scale that uses social distance to assess prejudice towards ethnic and religious out groups among Asians and whites. It was developed among a sample of 2,982 teenagers attending schools in northern England who indicated their religion as "Muslim", "Christian" or "No…

Structured questionnaires and semi-structured interviews are often used in mixed method studies to generate confirmatory results despite differences in methods of data collection, analysis, and interpretation. A review of 19 questionnaire-interview comparison studies found that consensus and consistency statistics were generally weak between…

The authors describe the development and validation of the Avoidance and Fusion Questionnaire for Youth (AFQ-Y), a child-report measure of psychological inflexibility engendered by high levels of cognitive fusion and experiential avoidance. Consistent with the theory underlying acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), items converged into a…

The purpose of this paper is to introduce an integrated values, skills and knowledge (VSK) framework for initial teacher preparation programmes. The VSK framework articulated, in broad terms, the desired skills and knowledge components for beginning teachers, with the underlying core values permeating the programmes. The paper has two parts, the…

This article describes the development and two studies on the construct validity of the Academic Emotions Scale (AES). The AES is a French self-report questionnaire assessing six emotions in the context of school learning: enjoyment, hope, pride, anxiety, shame and frustration. Its construct validity was studied through exploratory and…

Single constructs measured using positively and negatively worded items are often incompatible with a congeneric model, but require 2 correlated factors. Imperfect correlation entails that 2 independent dimensions are required for representing the true variance. If 2 dimensions are sought, how can they be interpreted? This study shows how to…

One of the most salient requirements for international educational research is the use of comparable measures. For the comparison of student performance across countries the use of item response theory (IRT) scaling techniques facilitates the collection of cross-nationally comparable measures. But there is also a need for valid and comparable…

Describes the development of the Religious Occupations and Stress Questionnaire (ROS), which attempts to fill the need for an appropriate measure of the stress experienced by individuals in religious occupations. Results of reliability and validity studies indicate high internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity.…

With increasing reliance being placed on the results of their surveys, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) recognized a need for these survey results to be valid and reliable. As part of the work of the Statistical Analysis Group in Education (SAGE), an effort was undertaken to investigate validity and reliability in survey…

Discusses the development of a scale to measure variables that may have an effect on teacher's affective attitudes towards computer-assisted language learning. Both qualitative and quantitative methodologies were used in the development of the scale to ensure its validity and reliability. (13 references) (Author/CK)

School principals have difficulty embracing the competing demands of school restructuring. These demands include being accountable for the outcomes of other decision-making groups within, or external to, the school community; having strong views while making decisions collaboratively; and using group processes without wasting the time, commitment,…