Identification of strengths is considered an important part of school psychological practice. However, few instruments are available to school psychologists that allow for systematic and comprehensive evaluation of a student's emotional and behavioral strengths. School psychologists must be provided with psychometrically sound instruments that…

Improving the validity and reliability of surveys is a critical part of the response to the call for improved rigor of education research, policy analysis and evaluation. Too often we create inquiry tools without validating our measures against how respondents interpret our questions, and therefore collect data of questionable quality. The purpose…

As an off-shoot of a study examining the reliability and validity of an adapted version of the Pre-Linguistic Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (A-PL-ADOS), 13 individuals with Down syndrome with IQs ranging between 24 and 48 were administered the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) and the A-PL-ADOS, which are well-validated…

This paper is organized to highlight gaps in our current understanding of attachment during the middle and later years of childhood and to allow researchers to make informed decisions regarding measurement selection. First, theoretical and methodological considerations with respect to the study of attachment during this age range are discussed.…

This study presents the results of a three-step project designed to: (1) identify what students perceive to be quality service as offered by instructors, (2) relate the dimensions identified to an appropriate survey instrument (the QISS) and pilot-test the instrument, and (3) survey a stratified representative sample of the undergraduate…

Evaluation of client progress is an important topic in communicative disorders research and clinical literature. Goal attainment scaling (GAS) is a technique for evaluating individual progress toward goals. Despite recognition of GAS as a clinical-outcome assessment technique in other clinical professions, the current debate on measuring client…

This study explored select psychometric properties of the Everyday Discrimination Scale in 120 Black adolescents (65 males and 55 females). Youth completed the Everyday Discrimination Scale and the Child Behaviour Checklist-Youth Self-Report Form. A t-test analysis revealed that Everyday Discrimination Scale scores were not significantly different…

A single-subject, alternating-treatments design was implemented for three adults with learning disabilities to compare the transcription of college-level texts using a speech recognition system and a traditional keyboard. The accuracy and rate of transcribing after editing was calculated for each transcribed passage. The results provide evidence…

Purpose: This study explores the notion of collective teacher efficacy, a characteristic of schools that has emerged as a significant factor in school productivity. More specifically, this paper examines the construct validity and reliability of the Israeli Collective Teacher Efficacy Scale and explores variables that may influence teachers' sense…

Research over the last four decades has shown that the classroom learning environment impacts on students' cognitive and affective outcomes. Different approaches have been taken to measure students' perceptions of their learning environment, and this has led to the development of a large number of survey instruments. One such instrument is the…

This article undertakes two studies to examine issues related to journal rankings. Study 1 examines the consistency between journal rankings reported in past studies. It finds that while there is consistency when comparing these studies, this consistency does not always occur outside the top-ranked journals. Study 2 explores whether individuals…

This article challenges Perry's research using performance evaluations to determine whether the educational background of child welfare workers is predictive of performance. Institutional theory, an understanding of street-level bureaucracies, and evaluations of field education performance measures are offered as necessary frameworks for Perry's…

Residency educators are identifying approaches to measure resident competence. Portfolios are well suited since they require work already completed as part of patient care where competency must be demonstrated. This paper describes assessment of the reliability and validity of portfolios in a psychiatry residency program. This was a…

Although many critics are reluctant to accept the trustworthiness of qualitative research, frameworks for ensuring rigour in this form of work have been in existence for many years. Guba's constructs, in particular, have won considerable favour and form the focus of this paper. Here researchers seek to satisfy four criteria. In addressing…

Although researchers have demonstrated a link between teacher autonomy and teacher motivation, job satisfaction, stress (burnout), professionalism, and empowerment, the task of identifying the underlying theoretical dimensions of teacher autonomy has met with varied results. The authors verified the existing 2-factor structure of the Teaching…