This paper provides formulas for expected true-score measures and reliability of binary items as a function of their Rasch difficulty parameters when the trait distribution is normal or logistic. With the proposed formula, one can evaluate the theoretical values of classical reliability indexes for norm-referenced and criterion-referenced…

This Digest presents a discussion of the assumptions of multiple regression that is tailored to the practicing researcher. The focus is on the assumptions of multiple regression that are not robust to violation, and that researchers can deal with if violated. Assumptions of normality, linearity, reliability of measurement, and homoscedasticity are…

This Digest, intended as an instructional aid for beginning research students and a refresher for researchers in the field, identifies key factors that play a critical role in determining the credibility that should be given to a specific research study. The needs for empirical research, randomization and control, and significance testing are…

This manual presents five learning styles instruments and presents data related to validity and reliability and descriptive statistics. The manual also discusses the implications for learning presented by each of these learning models. For purposes of this discussion, "learning style,""cognitive style," and "personal style" are used synonymously.…

Unfortunately, researchers do not usually have measurement instruments that provide perfectly reliable scores. Therefore, the researcher may want to account for the level of unreliability by appropriately increasing the sample size. For example, the results of a pilot study may indicate that a particular instrument is not as reliable with a given…

The tendency for some survey respondents to be unreasonably agreeable on attitude measures with an agree-disagree format is typically termed acquiescence, or acquiescent responding (AR). This paper suggests an alternative operational definition of AR plus a statistical test for identifying AR subjects. If positively and negatively phrased items…

This study focused on the issue of measurement reliability and its attenuation on correlation between two composites and two seemingly different approaches for correcting the attenuation. As expected, Monte Carlo simulation results show that correlation coefficients uncorrected for measurement error are systematically biased downward. For the data…

Presents a check list to be used when developing evaluation devices and as a final audit after one is prepared. (SB)

The results of this investigation demonstrate the reliability of ratings of accurate empathy and nonpossessive warmth during psychotherapeutic intervention with children. (Author)

Comparisons made in errors of classifications, percentage of overlapping, correlation of identical scales scored by both scoring procedures, intercorrelations of scales, and the ranking of scale scores within each subject showed that the two scoring systems produced different interest scores. (Author)

The extent to which one can reduce the rank of a symmetric matrix by only changing its diagonal entries is discussed. Extension of this work to minimum trace factor analysis is presented. (Author/JKS)

The sole objective of the employment interview should be to obtain and evaluate factual and verifiable information. The greater the discrepancy between the tasks of the job and the experience of the interviewee, the more critical will be the influence of the intuitive judgment of the interviewer. (Author/MLF)

Since fixed and random facets may exist in objects of study as well as in conditions of observation, various modifications of the generalizability theory estimation formulas are required for different types of measurement designs. Various design modifications are proposed to improve reliability by reducing error variance. (Author/BW)