We investigated whether standardized neuropsychological tests and experimental cognitive paradigms measure the same cognitive faculties. Specifically, do neuropsychological tests commonly used to assess attention measure the same construct as attention paradigms used in cognitive psychology and neuroscience? We built on the "general attention…

One of the primary goals of higher education is to enhance students' critical thinking skills as they work to complete their program of study. As such, it is for critical educators and academic program coordinators to have access to assessment tools that can provide accurate estimates of the cognitive and dispositional domains of higher-order…

The Remote Associates Test (RAT) developed by Mednick and Mednick (1967) is known as a valid measure of creative convergent thinking. We developed a 30-item version of the RAT in Dutch with high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.85) and applied both Classical Test Theory and Item Response Theory (IRT) to provide measures of item…

A reverse engineering approach to automatic item generation (AIG) was applied to a figure-based publicly released test item from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) mathematical literacy cognitive instrument as part of a proof of concept. The author created an item…

Given the relatively high intercorrelations observed between mathematics achievement, reading achievement, and cognitive ability, it has recently been claimed that student assessment studies (e.g., TIMSS, PISA) and intelligence tests measure a single cognitive ability that is practically identical to general intelligence. The present article uses…

The construct of ability conceptions plays a critical role in children's motivation and achievement behaviors in education, including physical education. Valid and reliable measures of this construct are essential to advance our knowledge of children's ability conceptions and related cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes. From a…

Presents initial data from 725 college and university students on the construct validity of the Learning Environmental Preferences (LEP) instrument. Findings suggest that the LEP accurately measures the cognitive portion of the Perry scheme of intellectual development. (Author/TE)

The n-back task requires participants to decide whether each stimulus in a sequence matches the one that appeared n items ago. Although n-back has become a standard "executive" working memory (WM) measure in cognitive neuroscience, it has been subjected to few behavioral tests of construct validity. A combined experimental-correlational study…

Addresses the theoretically important question of whether g is merely an artifact of the method of constructing psychometric tests and the mathematical operations of factor analysis or whether it has an authentic claim to represent some natural phenomenon that exists independently of psychometrics and factor analysis. (Author/ABB)

Reports the results of the first joint confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the Cognitive Assessment System (CAS) and the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities-3rd Edition (WJ III). Results of these analyses do not support the construct validity of the CAS as a measure of the PASS (planning, attention, simultaneous, and sequential)…

The relationship among Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive (PASS) processing scores of the Cognitive Assessment System (CAS) and the Woodcock-Johnson Revised Tests of Achievement (WJ-R) were examined with a sample of 1,559 students aged 5-17 years. Participants were part of the CAS standardization sample and closely represented the…

Examines the factor structure of the Learning Behavior Scale (LBS) in a sample of 257 elementary school students. Results indicate that the internal consistency of the total LBS scores were high enough for individual decision making, whereas the reliability estimates of scores on the Attention/Persistence and Strategy/Flexibility subscales were…

Administered the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) to 160, first-year college students so as to ascertain its convergent and discriminant validities with respect to other psychological instruments. Results indicate that the internal consistency of the BDI-II is high with college students and it displays convergent validity with other…

Cognitive learning style instruments continue to enjoy widespread use in educational and occupational contexts by researchers and practitioners alike, despite widespread questions about the valid measurement of cognitive learning styles. This investigation examines the psychometric properties of one well-known measure of cognitive learning…

New developments for solving the validation problem are applied to measuring and validating spatial modifiability. Results from 582 Air Force recruits support construct and criterion-related validities for the cognitive modifiability of spatial visualization items. Results also support modifiability as a direct measurement of learning ability.…