Much of the research that has examined the writing knowledge of school-age students has relied on interviews to ascertain this information, which is problematic because interviews may underestimate breadth and depth of writing knowledge, require lengthy interactions with participants, and do not permit a direct evaluation of a prescribed array of…

The p-factor is a construct that is thought to explain and maybe even cause variation in all forms of psychopathology. Since its 'discovery' in 2012, hundreds of studies have been dedicated to the extraction and validation of statistical instantiations of the p-factor, called general factors of psychopathology. In this Perspective, we outline five…

Scale validation is vital to psychological research because it ensures that scores from measurement scales represent the intended construct. Factor analysis fit indices are commonly used to provide quantitative evidence that a proposed factor structure is plausible. However, there is mismatch between guidelines for evaluating fit of factor models…

Background: The Evidence-Based Practice Attitudes Scale (EBPAS) is widely used in implementation research, but it has not been adapted and validated for use among general education teachers, who are most likely to deliver evidence-based prevention programs in schools, the most common setting where youth access social, emotional, and behavioral…

Measuring the quality of classroom-based interactive shared book reading within the early childhood classroom represents a specific dimension of teacher-child interactions that is of great interest to researchers. This interest reflects decades of research demonstrating the benefit of reading to young children in both the home and the classroom.…

Culturally responsive assessment practices include validated measures appropriate for use with diverse populations. Considering the increasing population of Latinx students in U.S. schools, measures need co-validated English and Spanish (SEHS) language forms. This study examined the Social Emotional Health Survey--Secondary with Latinx students…

Background: Implementation climate is an organizational construct theorized to facilitate the adoption and delivery of evidence-based practices. Within schools, teachers often are tasked with implementing universal prevention programs. Therefore, they are ideal informants when assessing school implementation climate for initial and continuous…

Background: Motivation is critical for supporting persistence and achievement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. In this study, we focus on the assessment of mathematics motivation among secondary school students. We provide validity and reliability evidence for the Mathematics Motivation Questionnaire…

When students require support to improve outcomes in a variety of domains, educators provide youth with school-based intervention. When educators require support to improve their professional practice, school leaders and support personnel (e.g., school psychologists) provide teachers with professional development (PD), consultation and coaching.…

Creativity is highly valued in both education and the workforce, but assessing and developing creativity can be difficult without psychometrically robust and affordable tools. The open-ended nature of creativity assessments has made them difficult to score, expensive, often imprecise, and therefore impractical for school- or district-wide use. To…

The current paper investigates the structural validity of the Children's Concentration and Empathy Scale (CCES), which was designed based on Montessori's developmental theory to assess, using teacher ratings, the coherence of attention-related characteristics (concentration, empathy, and normalization) in children from 1.5 to 12 years old. The…

Critical consciousness represents the analysis and critique of structural inequalities, the motivation and perceived capacity to effect change, and social action to redress inequity. A wave of recent instruments measuring critical consciousness have been rigorously validated. Yet, whether these measures efficiently assess different levels of…

Past research indicates that teacher math anxiety is related to student outcomes and can be decreased through intervention. However, there is little research on this topic, partially due to a lack of math anxiety measures validated for use with practicing teachers. In this study of 399 elementary school teachers, we report on the construct…

Direct Behavior Rating (DBR) is an efficient method for monitoring changes in student behavior in response to intervention. Emerging research on DBR Multi-Item Scales (DBR-MIS) indicates that DBR-MIS has promising characteristics as a progress- monitoring assessment. Specifically, the multiple items within DBR-MIS allow stakeholders to measure…

Introduction: This longitudinal study designed and tested the validity of a new measure of pro-social risk taking -- risks that individuals take in order to help others. Methods: The sample was racially and ethnically diverse adolescents in the rural Southeastern United States (N = 867; Mage = 12.82 years, 10-14 years at Wave 1; 50% Girls, 33%…