Dr. Card's article provides useful and clear standards for determining what good measurement is, identifies important problems in the measurement of constructs important to character education, and provides clear guidance about measurement development. In this article, I raise 4 points that build on Dr. Card's work. First, advancing assessment in…

Dr. Card's article provides useful and clear standards for determining what good measurement is, identifies important problems in the measurement of constructs important to character education, and provides clear guidance about measurement development. In this article, I raise 4 points that build on Dr. Card's work. First, advancing assessment in…

Recent publications in the "Journal of Youth and Adolescence" present a variety of topics exploring adolescents' mental functioning in the twenty first century. Conceptually, many of the articles address the intriguing, though rarely explicit, question of developmental continuities and change from adolescence to adulthood. Such…

The main characteristic of children's play is its mental aspect--the fact that it is based on thoughts and feelings and not on objective reality. During imaginary play, children go beyond the limits of reality, and toys are tools that help them to do this. Children need character toys--toys that play the role of companion or partner--in the early…

In this paper, a model for assessment and intervention is presented. This model explains how to perform theory- and evidence- based as well as practice-based assessment and intervention. The assessment model applies a holistic approach to treatment planning, which includes recognition of the influence of community, school, peers, family and the…

Although researchers have succeeded in identifying knowledge and skills and personal traits and characteristics of effective leaders, they have not been nearly as successful in identifying or defining those elusive leadership qualities that fall into the affective domain--what the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE)…

Cultural sensitivity and cultural competence in the selection of culturally sensitive treatments is a requisite for effective counseling practice in working with diverse clients and their families, particularly when clients present with health issues or medical problems. Described here is a strategy for selecting culturally sensitive treatments…

In this reply the authors address comments by C. R. Cloninger (2008) related to their report (R. F. Farmer & L. R. Goldberg, 2008) on the psychometric properties of the revised Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI-R) and a short inventory derivative, the TCI-140. Even though Cloninger's psychobiological model has undergone substantial…

Subjective well-being has often been studied as a context-free construct, reflecting overall life satisfaction and characteristic levels of positive affect and negative affect. But there has also been much interest in domain-specific aspects of subjective well-being, such as job satisfaction. The authors provide a brief overview of the two primary…

Educators do not refute that excellent teachers possess particular dispositions that make them stand out or be recognized among their peers. Kindness, caring, having high expectations for students and themselves, teaching students to think critically, having a strong work ethic, and to be aware of, and having an appreciation of cultural diversity…

The article discusses issues relating to the international use of personality inventories, especially those in which organizations make comparisons between people from differing cultures or countries or those with different languages. The focus is on the issue of norming and the use of national versus multinational norms. It is noted that…

An evaluation model was designed to be a self-evaluation component to be used in conceptualizing and implementing personal and professional development plans. The personality dynamics model itself, beyond its theoretical bases, includes the following techniques to assist the individual in the self-evaluation process leading to plan development:…

After providing a brief review of three other approaches to assessment of preschool children (DSM-IV diagnoses, "Zero to Three" diagnoses, and temperament scales), this paper focuses on the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA). The empirically based assessment paradigm provides user-friendly, cost-effective, reliable,…