The Remote Associates Test (RAT; Mednick, 1962; Mednick & Mednick, 1967) is a commonly employed test of creative convergent thinking. The RAT is scored with a dichotomous scoring, scoring correct answers as 1 and all other answers as 0. Based on recent research into the information processing underlying RAT performance, we argued that the…

This article discusses how comparability relates to current mainstream conceptions of validity, in the context of educational assessment. Relevant literature was used to consider the relationship between these concepts. The article concludes that, depending on the exact claims being made about the appropriate interpretations and uses of the…

There is increased emphasis on using experimental and quasi-experimental methods to evaluate educational programs; however, educational evaluators and school leaders are often faced with challenges when implementing such designs in educational settings. Use of a historical cohort control group design provides a viable option for conducting…

Elicited imitation (EI) has been widely used to examine second language (L2) proficiency and development and was an especially popular method in the 1970s and early 1980s. However, as the field embraced more communicative approaches to both instruction and assessment, the use of EI diminished, and the construct-related validity of EI scores as a…

Oral language skills are important to consider in school psychology practice, as they are directly tied to many areas of academic functioning. For example, research has demonstrated that oral language skills in early elementary school predict reading comprehension in later grades (Kendeou, van den Broek, White, & Lynch, 2009). With a…

Comparability between different educational qualifications is an important issue within policy discourse in the UK. In this context, the comparability of qualification demands has been explored through the use of expert human judgement. The involvement of human judgement in estimating assessment demands has consequences for methodology. This…

This article reevaluates the latent structure of the Teacher Efficacy Scale using confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) on a sample of preservice teachers from a public university in the U.S. Southwest. The fit of a proposed two-factor CFA model with an error correlation structure consistent with internal/ external locus of control is compared to…

In recent years, research on the important value of generalized trust has been expanded to include immigrants as a group, but it may be questioned whether the frequently employed generalized trust construct is a valid cross-group measure of this phenomenon for natives and non-Western immigrants in Western societies. Building on a Danish survey of…

The Assessment of Children's Hand Skills (ACHS) is a new assessment tool that utilizes a naturalistic observational method to capture children's real-life hand skill performance when engaging in various types of activities. The ACHS also intends to be used with both typically developing children and those presenting with disabilities. The purpose…

We describe findings from a research partnership involving a global airline manufacturing company (The Boeing Company), and learning scientists and aeronautical engineers from the University of Washington. Our starting point for the partnership focused on an 8-hour introductory composites course that was designed for company employees. In phase…

This study explored the antecedents of self-efficacy beliefs for literacy instruction and the relationship of these beliefs to self-efficacy for teaching in general. Factor analysis demonstrated construct validity of the measure of TSELI developed. Moderate correlations between TSELI and the more general TSES suggest that while there is some…

Three test construction strategies are described and illustrated in the development of the Verb Interest Test (VIT), an inventory that assesses vocational interests using verbs. Verbs might be a promising alternative to the descriptions of occupational activities used in most vocational interest inventories because they are context-independent,…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the "g" loadings and specific effects of the core and diagnostic composite scores from the Differential Abilities Scales, Second Edition (DAS-II; Elliott, 2007a). Scores from a subset of the DAS-II standardization sample for ages 3:6 to 17:11 were submitted to principal factor analysis. Four…

Impairment in the development of reciprocal social interaction and other social skills is one of the defining characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). There is a need for assessment tools that will help guide social skills interventions and document outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine the potential usefulness of two…

This study examined measurement invariance (i.e., configural invariance, metric invariance, scalar invariance) of the Chinese version of Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II-C) across college males and females and compared gender differences on depression at the latent factor mean level. Two samples composed of 402 male college students and 595…