This paper describes the development and validation of a set of three assessment instruments that can be used to assess students' progress on the energy concept (ASPECt) from fourth through twelfth grade. Rasch analysis techniques were used throughout the development process to guide the construction of an item bank and the selection of items for…

Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) and behavior interventions have been effective in the management of challenging behavior among children with developmental disabilities including autism spectrum disorders. Research suggests the need for valid measurement instruments for verifying, calibrating and scoring competence in FBA and behavior…

Self-efficacy, or the beliefs people hold about their ability to succeed in certain pursuits, is a long-established construct. Self-efficacy for science communication distinguishes scientists who engage with the public and relates to scientists' attitudes about the public. As such, self-efficacy for public engagement has the potential to serve as…

Recently adopted state standards for middle grades and high school mathematics content have an increased emphasis on statistical topics. With this change, teacher education programs may need to adapt how they prepare preservice secondary mathematics teachers (PSMTs) to teach statistics and require measures related to statistics teaching to assess…

The interaction between language and the learning of statistical concepts has been receiving increased attention. The Communication, Language, And Statistics Survey (CLASS) was developed in response to the need to focus on dynamics of language in light of the culturally and linguistically diverse environments of introductory statistics classrooms.…

This study reports on the national standardization and validation of the Learning Behaviors Scale (LBS) for use in Trinidad and Tobago. The LBS is a teacher rating scale centering on observable behaviors relevant to identifying childhood approaches to classroom learning. Teachers observed a stratified sample of 900 students across the islands'…

Research focused on student belonging has sometimes used available measures in a unidimensional way despite evidence of multidimensionality in these scales. This study introduces a new unidimensional measure of school belonging that is psychometrically robust with preliminary evidence of construct validity that we call the Simple School Belonging…

An increased enthusiasm on teacher accountability, in recent times, has led policy makers and teachers to a significant care over evaluating teachers' success. To this aim, a 40-item Teacher Success questionnaire was developed and validated by the application of the Rasch model. The Rasch model is used to decide whether the scores of an instrument…

This article reports the development of the Test Takers' Metacognitive Awareness Reading Questionnaire (TMARQ) which measures test takers' metacognition in reading comprehension tests. The TMARQ comprises seven subscales: planning strategies, evaluating strategies, monitoring strategies, strategies for identifying important information,…

The purpose of this study was to provide further validation a new measure of mental toughness in sport. The Inventory of Mental Toughness Factors in Sport (IMTF-S) was originally developed and validated using principal component analysis. For the present study, the psychometric properties of the IMTF-S were again evaluated, but by way of the Rasch…

Objectives: The aim of this pilot study was to explore psychometric properties of two versions of the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment Inventory in a Swedish social service sample. Method: Social workers employed at 22 Swedish child protections agencies participated in the data collection. Both classic test theory approaches and…

Any examination that involves moderate to high stakes implications for examinees should be psychometrically sound and legally defensible. Currently, there are two broad and competing families of test theories that are used to score examination data. The majority of instructors outside the high-stakes testing arena rely on classical test theory…

The present study examines the development of a measure tapping students' perceptions of (pre-service) teachers' teaching behaviour to explore the practical value of such a measure in teacher education and teacher professional development programs. From a sample of 1,635 students of 91 pre-service teachers teaching in secondary education in The…

This study explored the psychometric properties of a locally developed information skills test for youth students in Malaysia using Rasch analysis. The test was a combination of 24 structured and multiple choice items with a 4-point grading scale. The test was administered to 72 technical college students and 139 secondary school students. The…

This study investigated the application of multidimensional item response theory (IRT) models to validate test structure and dimensionality. Multiple content areas or domains within a single subject often exist in large-scale achievement tests. Such areas or domains may cause multidimensionality or local item dependence, which both violate the…