Rater scoring has an impact on writing test reliability and validity. Thus, there has been a continued call for researchers to investigate issues related to rating (Crusan, 2015). Investigating the scoring process and understanding how raters arrive at particular scores are critical "because the score is ultimately what will be used in making…

Recognition that adverse events are a significant cause for morbidity and mortality has led to a rise in global efforts to improve patient safety. Adaptations are needed in healthcare institutions and at the educational preparatory level for all healthcare providers. One change surrounds the significance of patient-centered care, an important…

Rurality is a term that can be used to describe rural residency and the cultural characteristics of rural individuals and areas. The counseling profession has increased its attention to culture with the development of the multicultural counseling competencies (Sue, Arredondo, & McDavis, 1992) and assessments designed to measure competency…

Based on Bronfenbrenner's (1979, 1992) ecological framework, the Counseling Training Environment Scale (CTES) was developed as a self-report measure that assesses the learning and training environment of counseling and related mental health training programs as perceived by current students. A two-phase mixed-methods design was used to create…

Immigrant populations are growing and permanently changing the demographic profile of the United States. Diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds are manifested in the families in each community, imposing demands and challenges to agencies that provide services to them. A large population of immigrant families, especially first and second…

Previous systematic reviews indicate a lack of reporting of reliability and validity evidence in subsets of the medical education literature. Psychology and general education reviews of factor analysis also indicate gaps between current and best practices; yet, a comprehensive review of exploratory factor analysis in instrument development across…

This study investigated the breakdown effect of a listening comprehension test, whether test takers are affected in comprehending lectures by impediments, and collected test takers' cognitive awareness on test tasks which contain listening breakdown factors how they perceived these impediments. In this context of the study, a "Breakdown" is a test…

Law enforcement requires the officer to invoke reason and critical thinking skills in order to solve intricate problems in real time, on the job. This study examined the course development of a large national organization (State Police Academies) to ascertain what strategies are being used in their courses to promote training for higher order,…

Working under classical test theory (CTT) and item response theory (IRT) frameworks, this study investigated psychometric properties of the Revised Purdue Spatial Visualization Tests: Visualization of Rotations (Revised PSVT:R). The original version, the PSVT:R was designed by Guay (1976) to measure spatial visualization ability in…

The purpose of this study was to (a) evaluate and discuss strengths and weaknesses in the current system of identifying gifted students and (b) investigate the effectiveness of using the Naglieri Nonverbal Abilities Test to identify underrepresented and gifted minority students in grades one through five in Central Mississippi. The study consisted…

This study examined the second language (L2) development of adult learners of Spanish at three levels of proficiency during and after a semester of instruction. A fundamental goal was to identify cognitive and psychosocial individual differences (IDs) that can explain between-learner variation over time in order to expand our understanding of the…

Conducting a worthwhile assessment of the performance of senior leaders such as university presidents poses unique challenges for public institutions of higher education. One of the most difficult issues is determining the "content" and "format" of the assessment instrument. Due to the breadth and complexity of the job, the…

Rubrics are a means to communicate the standards or criteria of an assignment and to assess student work formatively or summatively by faculty, peer, and/or self. Given that assessment is a necessary and mandated component of education, this study sought to summarize what is known about rubrics as an assessment tool for student learning. In this…

The current study examined the validation and alignment of the PASA-Science by determining whether the alternate science assessment anchors linked to the regular education science anchors; whether the PASA-Science assessment items are science; whether the PASA-Science assessment items linked to the alternate science eligible content, and what…

Instructors in electrical and computer engineering and in computer science have developed innovative methods to teach digital logic circuits. These methods attempt to increase student learning, satisfaction, and retention. Although there are readily accessible and accepted means for measuring satisfaction and retention, there are no widely…