This study used exploratory factor analysis to test the factor structure of the Project for Educational Research That Scales (PERTS) instrument. Research that reports the reliability, construct validity, and factor structure of the PERTS scale is useful for interpreting the results from the use of the widely distributed survey and for suggesting…

Existing research indicates that emotions are integral components of teachers' jobs and lives, but knowledge regarding functional relations between teachers' emotions, their antecedents and their effects on teachers, teaching and students is still quite scarce. One possible reason for this knowledge gap is the lack of adequate operationalisation…

The engagement and retention of commencing students is a longstanding issue in higher education, particularly with the implementation of the widening student participation agenda. The early weeks of the first semester are especially critical to student engagement and early attrition. This study investigated the perceived early transition needs of…

Problem Statement: Based on developments in the 21st century technology has become a large part of the classroom experience. Teachers need to have an understanding of how technology can be coordinated with pedagogy and content knowledge in order to integrate technology effectively into classroom instruction. Self-efficacy beliefs toward technology…

Little is known about levels of personal growth attributed by students to typical college life experiences. This paper documents two studies of student self-reported and posttraumatic growth and compares growth levels across populations. Both studies measure student attributions of cause to academic and non-academic experiences, respectively. It…

Using the constructs of Rogers, Ellis, and Barrett-Lennard, a twenty-five item Likert-type instrument, the Non-Directive Supervisory Behavior Scale, was developed to measure directive vs. non-directive supervisory behavior. One hundred ninety-five in-service teachers, randomly selected from two school districts, completed the twenty-five item…

The Administrator Professional Leadership Scale (APLS) was developed to measure the professional leadership quality of a school principal, and to provide principals with anonymous feedback on teachers' perceptions of their leadership. Further refinement was carried out to increase its reliability; to discover categories of administrator behavior…

Multiple group discriminant analysis was used to determine if college students' evaluations of instruction were influenced by the course, the instructor, both, or neither. A measure of students' course-oriented attitudes, the Adjective Rating Scale (ARS), and a rating of instruction form, the Instructional Development and Effectiveness Assessment…

Two questions were addressed: the clustering pattern of postsecondary deaf students' ratings of classroom instruction compared to the ratings of hearing students, and the relative merits of a checklist format versus a Likert response format. Seven principal factors related to classroom instruction were evaluated: (1) practical gain, or course…

This study demonstrated the effectiveness of a reliable, inexpensive method for observing fathers interacting with their preschool children in the home. Fathers in 180 white families were interviewed about their child rearing attitudes and practices, and observed while playing games with their four-year old children. When a factor analysis of the…

The Student Learning Scales (SLS) were intended to supplement or replace existing college instructor performance scales, by focusing on the actions of learners and by providing students with an instrument for assessing their own learning reactions in a variety of instructional contexts. Factor analyses and validity studies were conducted to…

The purposes of this study were to: (1) examine the psychometric properties of the Ball Aptitude Battery (BAB) on a high school freshman sample; (2) develop BAB norms for high school freshmen; (3) develop and evaluate four memory tests and a vocabulary test appropriate for freshmen; (4) examine level and structure differences for the BAB tests…

A five-point school subjects attitude scale, based on the semantic differential technique, was developed after two rounds of factor analysis; it contained 24 bipolar adjectives, each representing one of three factors: evaluation, usefulness, and difficulty. The scale was administered to Alberta (Canada) students in grades 5 and 8, who were…

This study explored individual differences in educational disadvantage-- deficits in formal and informal education in the school, home, and elsewhere--in the SAT test-taking population. Factor analysis identified six educational disadvantage factors--four concerning the students' schools and two the students' nativity and parenting--and one family…

Because courts have required that selection tests be job-related, this study was undertaken to provide a practical means of performing a job analysis of teaching. Several court decisions are discussed, including Griggs v. Duke Power Company and Chance v. Board of Examiners, with respect to both Fourteenth Amendment and statutory issues. In the…