A number of psychometricians have argued for the use of parallel analysis to determine the number of factors. However, parallel analysis must be viewed at best as a heuristic approach rather than a mathematically rigorous one. The authors suggest a revision to parallel analysis that could improve its accuracy. A Monte Carlo study is conducted to…

Mindfulness, a construct that entails moment-to-moment effort to be aware of present experiences and positive attitudinal features, has become integrated into the sciences. The Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), one popular measure of mindfulness, exhibits different responses to positively and negatively worded items in nonmeditating…

There is a lack of research on the effects of outliers on the decisions about the number of factors to retain in an exploratory factor analysis, especially for outliers arising from unintended and unknowingly included subpopulations. The purpose of the present research was to investigate how outliers from an unintended and unknowingly included…

The study assesses the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Norwegian Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale--NTSES. Multiple group confirmatory factor analysis was used to explore the measurement invariance of the scale across two countries. Analyses performed on Italian and Norwegian samples confirmed a six-factor structure of the scale…

Objectives: The present study examined the psychometric properties of the Chinese Virtues Questionnaire (CVQ). The reliability, factor structure, construct validity, and temporal stability of the inventory were examined. Method: A university student sample ("n" = 878) and a working adult sample ("n" = 153) were recruited.…

The "postpartum blues" is a mild, predictable mood disturbance occurring within the first several days following childbirth. Previous analyses of the "blues" symptom structure yielded inconclusive findings, making reliable assessment a significant methodological limitation. The current study aimed to explicate the symptom…

This investigation examined the measurement properties of the Three Domains of Disgust Scale (TDDS). Principal components analysis in Study 1 (n = 206) revealed three factors of Pathogen, Sexual, and Moral Disgust that demonstrated excellent reliability, including test-retest over 12 weeks. Confirmatory factor analyses in Study 2 (n = 406)…

When comparing latent variables among groups, it is important to first establish the equivalence or invariance of the measurement model across groups. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is a commonly used methodological approach to examine measurement equivalence/invariance (ME/I). Within the CFA framework, the chi-square goodness-of-fit test and…

Several instruments have been developed to gauge student perceptions of their classroom environment as greater attention has been given to the relationship between student achievement and student perceptions. One widely used instrument to assess those perceptions is the Classroom Environment Scale (CES), a 90-item measure for secondary level…

We estimated the invariance of educational achievement (EA) and learning attitudes (LA) measures across nations. A multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was used to estimate the invariance of educational achievement and learning attitudes across 55 nations (Programme for International Student Assessment [PISA] 2006 data, N = 354,203). The…

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…

In this article the authors present a confirmatory factor analysis of the Teachers' Attitudes Toward Computers (TAC) and the Teachers' Attitudes Toward Information Technology (TAT) scales by Christensen and Knezek (1996, 1998) using large samples from three states. The TAC was reduced from 98 items and nine factors to 35 items and eight factors,…

Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MCFA) is a popular method for the examination of measurement invariance and specifically, factor invariance. Recent research has begun to focus on using MCFA to detect invariance for test items. MCFA requires certain parameters (e.g., factor loadings) to be constrained for model identification, which are…

As part of a three-phase study, 18 items were developed to measure aspects of a student's willingness to seek help from and/or work with peers and teachers when studying college mathematics. In the first phase, 24 items were developed and administered to 165 undergraduate college students. During the second phase, 20 items, modified from the first…

This study gives results of the first phase of the 12-18 year old Turkish students' norm study of The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), which developed by Pintrich, Smith, Garcia & McKeachie (1993). The scale was administrated to 1114 students from 3 primary schools and 3 high schools in Ankara in Turkish language,…