The Beck Depression Inventory was administered to 35 outpatients diagnosed as primary generalized anxiety disorders and 101 outpatients diagnosed as primary major-depression and dysthymic disorders. A backward stepwise-discriminant analysis revealed that Sadness and Loss of Libido were the only two symptoms that meaningfullly distinguished between…

Purpose of this study is to determine the relative value of three item validation methods which may be employed in the selection of items for inclusion in a test. (Author/CB)

The ideal item in the criterion-referenced testing situation is the item with a nonsignificant discrimination index and a high difficulty level; items that discriminate negatively are clearly unacceptable; and items that discriminate positively usually indicate a need for revision. (Author)

Several alternative indexes of item usefulness were empirically compared. They were: (1) item discrimination based on high and low groups on a postinstructional measure, (2) shift in item difficulty from a pre- to a postinstruction measure, and (3) item discrimination based on pre- and posttest performances. A typical classroom final examination…

Classification studies are important for practitioners who need to identify individuals for specialized treatment or intervention. When interventions are irreversible or misclassifications are costly, information about the proficiency of different classification procedures becomes invaluable. This study furnishes information about the relative…