Narrative data yield rich detail, insight, and information, but the personal and situational characteristics of coders (called value inertia and cognitive limitation biases) can affect data reduction. The effects of coder exposure to expected project outcomes and the level of coder research methodology sophistication were investigated. Coders,…

The use of healthy individuals acting as simulated patients for the purpose of clinical teaching is discussed. The term "standardized patients" is used to refer to training the individual to present a standard, repeatable stimulus. Some evidence suggests that simulated patients possess high fidelity (i.e., closely approximate real…

The author presents a variation of Q-sort testing appropriate for the examination and quantification of responses to questions concerning teacher values and attitudes relating to teaching style. Specifically, the method is designed for use in examining the four "families" of teaching models developed in Joyce and Weil's taxonomy: social…

Indexes of interrater reliability and agreement are reviewed and suggestions are made regarding their use in counseling psychology research. The distinction between agreement and reliability is clarified and the relationships between these indexes and the level of measurement and type of replication are discussed. (Author)

The hypothesis was tested that subjects fake personality tests by enacting a specific social role, rather than by responding in terms of personality constructs, and that such role faking cannot be detected by validity scales. Results support the hypothesis. (Author)

The purpose of this paper is to present a dimensional simplification of the concept of "critical thinking" ("the correct assessing of statements") which will provide a basis for research. Three dimensions of critical thinking--logical, criterial, pragmatic--are distinguished, and 12 aspects of critical thinking are identified and elaborated by a…

The power of a statistical test is, in part, a function of the reliability of the dependable variable being analyzed. The substitution of sigma square divided by the reliability coefficient for sigma is proposed. This enables the researcher to incorporate dependent variable reliability information when determining the sample size required for a…

Because of the duration and magnitude of this overall project, maintaining inter-rater reliability presented several problems. Since the study was designed to compare teacher behavior across a three-year time span, it was necessary to maintain reliability across that time period. The use of student raters posed additional problems of mobility and…

Scott's coefficient is an improved method for estimating observer reliability using any system which assigns events to mutually exclusive categories. The formula is the ratio of the actual difference between obtained and chance agreement to the maximum difference between obtained and chance agreement. A FORTRAN program for calculating this…

This research was designed to obtain information on the validity and reliability of three new evaluation techniques: (1) The Simulated Patient Management Problem (PMP), a written simulation exercise; (2) The Simulated Diagnostic Interview (DI), an oral exercise; and (3) The Simulated Proposed Treatment Interview (PTI), another oral exercise. These…

This study examined variation in transcriber disagreement as a function of transcriber's linguistic background, the transcription task, and the nature of judgment involved. Three linguistics students trained in phonetic transcription listened to the same tapes of Midwestern kindergarteners pronouncing lists of common words. Transcription task…

A study was conducted to observe the varying degree of consistency between three sources of data with respect to the same classroom phenomenon. Data was gathered in a public high school near Detroit in 1969. Using the basic 10-category Flanders interaction analysis system, systematic observations of controversial issues discussions were made in…

Basic to many psychological investigations is the question of agreement between observers who independently categorize people. Several recent studies have proposed measures of agreement when a set of nominal scale categories have been pre-defined and imposed on both observers. This study, in contrast, developes a measure of agreement for settings…