How do you judge the accuracy, reliability, and completeness of an electronic or online database? What measures do publishers and distributors employ to ensure that quality standards are met? Who is responsible for what part of the process? Eighteen contributors address these questions and more in their discussion of an important issue in today's…

This paper proposes a systematic method of measuring subjects' free recall from printed hard news stories, based on schema theories of cognition. Citing literature that demonstrates the role of text structures and text schemas in the recall of written text, the paper suggests incorporating these processes into the assessment of recall of news. In…

A study examined college students' responses to writing tasks that were created by their instructors--writing tasks that constituted an important part of the instructors' course designs and that were presented to students as an integral part of the curriculum. In all, approximately 4800 independent evaluations of 796 essays were analyzed. The…

Students often have difficulty in evaluating the validity of a study. A conceptually and linguistically meaningful framework for evaluating research studies is proposed that is based on the discussion of internal and external validity of T. D. Cook and D. T. Campbell (1979). The proposal includes six key dimensions, three related to internal…

This study evaluated the validity of using an earplug so that information is presented to only one ear of children (N=34) in Alberta, Canada, with learning disabilities as a means of improving listening comprehension. Children were asked to recall stories from the Auditory Comprehension Test (ACT) immediately after hearing the story. The children…

This paper presents a review of the literature on reliability in qualitative studies. Reliability is defined as the extent to which studies can be replicated, using the same methods, and getting the same results. It is the degree to which data are independent of the accidental circumstances of the research. The review includes the following three…

The multi-stage development of the Community Service Attitudes Scale (CSAS), an instrument for measuring college students' attitudes about community service, is reported. The CSAS was developed based on the helping behavior model of S. Schwartz (1977). The developed instrument was tested with two samples of 437 and 332 college students. The scales…

The analysis of small group data with hierarchical linear models is discussed, concentrating on the usefulness and reliability of such analyses using data reported by N. M. Webb (1982). Results of Webb's analyses for 96 junior high school students in small groups are compared with results obtained with random effects linear models for the analysis…

This annotated bibliography on performance assessment in schools lists 16 journal articles and 2 reports which were published between 1991 and 1993. Citations address the following aspects of performance assessment: conditions for alternative assessments, validity and reliability issues, accountability issues, performance assessment in science and…

The collection of observational data in natural settings and in real time requires equipment that is light and easily used, and programs that permit rapid and flexible encoding of data. This paper describes a set of four programs for collecting and analyzing continuous time sample, focal-individual data as described by J. Altmann (1974), using a…

In this paper, academic efficiency is operationally defined and a methodology for measuring it at the school level is described. Academic efficiency is defined as the extent to which a school utilizes its time for the academic development of all its students. The measure of academic efficiency must include three elements: time, students, and…

To investigate the causes of variation in cloze-comprehension test correlations, a reanalysis was conducted of the influential J.R. Bormuth study (1962), which reported correlations between nine cloze and nine comprehension tests administered to 50 subjects in grades 4, 5, and 6. Two separate renalayses were completed in the present study, the…

The Gross Self-Insight Scale was administered to an encounter group and a control group before and after the group experience. The scale was found to have very high reliabiltiy and moderately high validity. Observation of the encounter group members' behavior supported the change in the scale scores of group members. (SE)

Raters viewed a videotape of an interview with a patient after having read one of three types of pretherapy information about the patient. Raters then completed scales regarding patient's level of adjustment, psychic distress, amount of change, and success of therapy. Only ratings of pretherapy to posttherapy patient change varied. (Author)

This annotated bibliography of materials in the ERIC database contains 30 annotations (dating from 1974 to 1989) on informal reading inventories (IRIs). The citations were selected to help professionals understand the history of, the uses of, and the issues surrounding IRIs. The major sections of the bibliography are: Overview, General Uses,…