The ability to convey shared meaning with minimal ambiguity is highly desirable for technical terms within disciplines and professions. Unfortunately, there is no widespread professional consensus over the meaning of the word "validity" as it pertains to educational and psychological testing. After illustrating the nature and extent of…

Each year a great many evaluations are conducted of international development efforts around the world. These development evaluations study projects, programs, country-wide portfolios, policy reform efforts, and other topics of interest to funders, governments, program managers, and other involved stakeholders. Although some of these evaluations…

Following Messick's definition of validity as a multi-faceted construct that includes contextual, substantive, structural, generalizable, external, and consequential dimensions, this study examined an established directed self-placement (DSP) system that had been functioning for ten years at a large university. The goal was to determine the extent…

This article discusses the evidence for intervention validity of Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) in designing support for students with intensive behavioral needs. Since its inclusion into the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act nearly a decade ago, FBA has been the subject of significant research investigating its use and…

This report describes a validation effort made to determine the effectiveness of a package of eight instructional modules which deal with equal opportunity and sex discrimination in physical education. A sample of preservice and inservice physical education teachers used the modules. The modules were validated through administration of pre and…

This paper argues that the National Diffusion Network (NDN) is a valuable tool for disseminating information about effective school improvement programs (SIPs). It considers why SIPs are not found more frequently in the NDN and what can be done to remedy this situation, from the perspective of the executive secretary of the NDN Program…

A field test examined the validity of the "Interdisciplinary Cooperative Education Curriculum Manual." (Among those topics covered in the manual are the following: vocational student organizations, leadership, civic responsibility, health and safety, human relations, communications, resource management, consumer skills, consumer law,…