This study tested the reliability and validity of the Carolina Opinions on Care of Older Adults (COCOA) survey compared with the Geriatric Assessment Survey (GAS). Participants were first year medical students (n = 160). A Linear Structural Relations (LISREL) measurement model for COCOA had a moderately strong fit that was significantly better…

Objectives: The objective of this work was to assess the reliability and validity of the Treatment Motivation Questionnaire-Revised (TMQ-R) in people with serious mental illness (SMI). Method: A large sample of consumers of mental health services (n = 469) were administered the TMQ-R. Results: The factor structure specified in previous research…

This paper describes convergent validity evidence regarding the mandatory, standards-based Chilean national teacher evaluation system (NTES). The study examined whether NTES identifies--and thereby rewards or punishes--the "right" teachers as high- or low-performing. We collected in-depth teaching performance data on a sample of 58…

This article describes the development and initial validation of a new instrument to measure academic stress--the Educational Stress Scale for Adolescents (ESSA). A series of cross-sectional questionnaire surveys were conducted with more than 2,000 Chinese adolescents to examine the psychometric properties. The final 16-item ESSA contains five…

Multiracial Americans represent a rapidly growing population (Shih & Sanchez, 2009); however, very little is known about the types of challenges and resilience experienced by these individuals. To date, few psychological measures have been created specifically to investigate the experiences of multiracial people. This article describes 2…

The "Manifestation of Symptomatology Scale" (MOSS) is a norm-referenced, self-report instrument designed to assess characteristics of psychopathology among children and adolescents from 11 to 18 years of age. Although the MOSS has been used in several research studies within juvenile justice or disciplinary education contexts, the psychometric…

This study, grounded in Self-Efficacy Theory, investigated classroom teachers' self-efficacy changes related to teaching healthy behaviour content after participating in ongoing workshops. Participants were 50 male and female teachers at the primary (n = 17) and secondary (n = 33) levels from two schools in one Native American community. Teacher…

This article reports on a study designed to validate the Gatekeeping Attitude Index, a 14-item Likert scaling index. The authors collected data from a convenience sample of social work field instructors (N = 188) with a response rate of 74.0%. Construct validation by exploratory factor analysis identified a 2-factor solution on the index after…

Physical educators should be able to define the "correct form" they expect to see each student performing in their classes. Moreover, they should be able to go beyond assessing students' skill levels by measuring the outcomes (products) of movements (i.e., how far they throw the ball or how many successful attempts are completed) or counting the…

Purpose: To determine the clinical performance characteristics of the Mann Assessment of Swallowing Ability (MASA) for predicting aspiration (determined by videofluoroscopic swallowing study [VFSS]) in a mixed population. Method: We selected 133 cases clinically evaluated using MASA and VFSS from January through June 2007. Ordinal risk rating…

Effectively and efficiently diagnosing African Americans' mental health has been a chronically unresolved challenge. To meet this challenge we developed a tool to better understand African Americans' mental health: the Multiculturally Sensitive Mental Health Scale (MSMHS). Three studies reporting the development and initial validation of the MSMHS…

On February 14, leading scholars and private foundation presidents shared the stage at a Capitol Hill briefing, "Payoffs of Long-Term Investment in Education Research." Speakers emphasized that education research based on long-term funding has led to important payoffs for education policy and practice in areas such as early intervention,…

The concept of "Ethnolinguistic Vitality" (EV) has received variable acceptance and support since its introduction by Giles, Bourhis, and Taylor. It has especially proven to be a valuable heuristic in studies of language maintenance and shift. However, the reliability and validity of the instruments used to investigate EV, especially…

The development of standardized, valid, and reliable methods for assessment of students' practice competence continues to be a challenge for social work educators. In this study, the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE), originally used in medicine to assess performance through simulated interviews, was adapted for social work to…

The Strength of Motivation for Medical School (SMMS) questionnaire is designed to determine the strength of motivation of students particularly for medical study. This research was performed to establish the validity evidence for measuring strength of motivation for medical school. Internal structure and relations to other variables were used as…