Presents a rationale for using single-subject research designs to examine the effects of therapeutic recreation (TR), offering a description of single-subject research designs, examining research requirements, explaining data analysis through visual inspection, presenting examples of single-subject research designs, and concluding that this…

Compared three residual-based methods for indexing school effectiveness using data from elementary schools in Maryland. Results indicate that the hierarchical linear model approach had higher stability across achievement test forms. Results further suggest that when only school-level data are available, the use of either of the school-level models…

Studied the interactive effect of instructional strategies enhanced with text-plus-textual metaphors or text-plus-graphical metaphors and cognitive style on the acquisition of programming concepts using a measure of cognitive style and the QUEST Interactive Test Analysis System. Results for 203 undergraduates support the reliability of the…

Suggests the use of an extended K-W-L (What I Know, What I Want to Know, What I Learned) to deal with problems with student information accuracy. Concludes that the extension of the K-W-L strategy provided opportunities for the public school students to research, check resources, and evaluate the reliability and validity of information before…

Examined relationships between parent and teacher and between mother and father Social Skills Rating System (SSRS) reports for 134 urban Head Start children to assess the cross-informant capacity of the SSRS. Found an insignificant relationship between parent and teacher SSRS ratings; found significant congruence between mothers' and fathers'…

Examined the stability of the standard error of measurement and the relationship between the reliability coefficient and the variance of both true scores and error scores for 170 school districts in a state. As expected, reliability coefficients varied as a function of group variability, but the variation in split-half coefficients from school to…

Presents an Item Response Theory (IRT) method for estimating standard errors of measurement of scale scores for the situation in which scale scores are nonlinear transformations of number-correct scores. Also describes procedures for estimating the average conditional standard error of measurement for scale scores and the reliability of scale…

Studied the stability of test anxiety over time by examining the level of reported cognitive test anxiety at three points in an academic semester. Results for 64 undergraduates show that it is practical to collect test anxiety data at times other than when a test is being completed. It does not seem necessary to collect test anxiety data prior to…

Counselors conducting survey research have many item format options to contemplate. This study examined midpoint selection and the effect on reliability of including or excluding midpoint options, and using both positively and negatively worded items. Findings indicate that reliability can be affected by both midpoint options and reverse coding.…

Although often ignored, reliability is critical when interpreting study effects and test results. Accordingly, this article focuses on the most commonly used estimate of reliability, internal consistency coefficients, with emphasis on coefficient alpha. An interpretive framework is provided for applied researchers and others seeking a conceptual…

Reliability and validity of Chinese Self-Report Family Inventory (C-SFI) were examined in three studies. Study 1 showed C-SFI was temporally stable and internally consistent. Study 2 indicated C-SFI could discriminate between clinical and nonclinical groups. Study 3 gave support for internal consistency, concurrent validity and construct validity.…

Applied a procedure to assess measurement invariance across cultures developed by J. Steenkamp and H. Baumgartner (1998) to a scale to measure cognitive age using data collected in India (n=195), China (n=250), and Korea (n=251). Results from confirmatory factor analyses indicate that the technique provides a valuable tool to assess measurement…

Illustrates a number of ways in which confidence intervals for reliability coefficients can be estimated. Suggests that authors who submit articles to "Educational and Psychological Measurement" report confidence intervals for reliability estimates whenever they report score reliabilities and that they note the interval estimation…

A sample of 293 local district assessments used in the Nebraska STARS (School-based Teacher-led Assessment and Reporting System), 147 from 2004 district mathematics assessment portfolios and 146 from 2003 reading assessment portfolios, was scored with a rubric evaluating their quality. Scorers were Nebraska educators with background and training…

A linear combination of a set of measures is often sought as an overall score summarizing subject performance. The weights in this composite can be selected to maximize its reliability or to maximize its validity, and the optimal choice of weights is in general not the same for these two optimality criteria. We explore several relationships…