In their study about the Dr. Fox lecture, Naftulin, Ware, and Donnelly (1973) claimed that an expressive speaker who delivered an attractive lecture devoid of any content could seduce students into believing that they had learned something significant. Over the decades, the study has been (and still is) cited hundreds of times and used by…

Recently graduated university students from all Australian Universities rate their overall departmental and university experiences (DUEs), and their responses (N = 44,932, 41 institutions) are used by the government to benchmark departments and universities. We evaluate this DUE strategy of rating overall departments and universities rather than…

Existing research posits multiple dimensions of bullying and victimization but has not identified well-differentiated facets of these constructs that meet standards of good measurement: goodness of fit, measurement invariance, lack of differential item functioning, and well-differentiated factors that are not so highly correlated as to detract…

Self-concept scales from the Australian Self Description Questionnaire II (SDQII) were included in the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88). Mean differences based on 17,544 U.S. responses and the Australian normative sample were small. Results support construct validity of SDQII responses in NELS:88 data. (SLD)

Multidimensional scaling (MDS) and Pathfinder techniques for assessing changes in the structural representation of a knowledge domain were studied with relatedness ratings collected from 72 Spanish college students. Comparison of student and expert similarity measures indicate that MDS and graph theoretic approaches are valid techniques. (SLD)

A test battery was designed to test the Baddeley and Hitch model of working memory. The battery was administered to 87 children aged 6 and 7 years. Correlations between subtest scores indicated high construct validity for the central executive and phonological loop measures, although not for the visuospatial measures. (Contains 100 references and…

This paper compares student, peer, and self ratings in terms of item statistics, convergent and discriminant validity, and relation to student learning. Ratings were similar in range and distribution, although colleagues tended to give the most favorable ratings, students least favorable. No rating was significantly related to student achievement.…

Findings and research designs used to study university students' evaluations of teaching effectiveness are reviewed. A construct validation approach which recognizes the multidimensionality of both effective teaching and students' evaluations is recommended for further research. (BS)

The study investigated the structural corroboration of instructional evaluation information collected from one source (students) by three different methods: responses to objective questionnaire items, written comments to open-ended questions, and group interview results. The three types of information presented a similar general impression of…

The construct validity of a new measure of children's exposure to print, the Title Recognition Test (TRT), was assessed with 34 fourth, 33 fifth, and 67 sixth graders. The TRT demonstrated significant correlations with spelling, vocabulary, verbal fluency, word knowledge, and general information. (SLD)

Original thinking was examined in 142 middle- and lower-class children across a wide range of age (7-13 years) and intellectual ability (low average to gifted). The instruments were lenient and stringent solution-standard measures of original problem solving and two subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. (Author/PN)

This research developed and validated a new measure of undergraduate student cynicism--the Cynical Attitudes Toward College Scale (CATCS). Two empirical studies were aimed at validating the CATCS, showing that it can differentiate student groups exhibiting different kinds and levels of cynicism and illustrating how it can predict students' future…

Multiple regression analysis indicated a significant relationship between course entry attitudes and end-of-course ratings for students reporting precourse expectations prior to entry into the course. Different sets of items from the Course Entry Scale were found to predict end-of-course ratings for different groups of students studied. (Author/PN)

The accuracy of various evaluation methods for assessing teacher effectiveness was investigated. College instructors (n=43) were rated by students, colleagues, trained classroom raters, former students, and themselves. Results indicate these methods to be more valid than prior research would suggest. (BS)

The construct validity of 14 measures used in college faculty personnel decisions was evaluated through a multitrait-multimethod matrix for data from 89 faculty members in 7 departments. The three-pronged model of teaching, research, and service was not validated. Exploratory factor analysis identified five or six behavior domains for evaluation.…