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,…

A description is presented of the development of an attitude survey, the Mississippi Student Teacher Attitude Inventory, which was designed to establish a reliable instrument for obtaining feedback concerning student teaching. A synthesis of studies from related literature indicate that there are numerous ways to approach the assessment of student…

Seven features of valid classroom observations procedures, a five-step measurement schemata, and a systematic classroom observation procedure designed to reduce measurement error are presented. The following features are addressed: (1) the inference of the observation is established a priori and confirmed post hoc; (2) craft knowledge and…

A computer simulation was undertaken to determine the effects of using Huynh's single-administration estimates of the decision consistency indices for agreement and coefficient kappa, under conditions that violated the beta-binomial assumption. Included in the investigation were two unimodal score distributions that fit the model and two bimodal…

The family is an obvious group for whom problem solving effectiveness holds importance. Problem solving interaction refers to the manner in which the behavior of family members is organized to resolve situations in which there is an unachieved but attainable goal, and the means to overcoming the barriers to achieving the goal are not apparent, but…

School psychologists have traditionally experienced difficulty in assessing children referred for special services. In order to determine if the diagnosis of emotional disturbance in South Carolina schools follows the guidelines provided by the South Carolina Department of Education publication "Procedures for the Survey, Screening,…

Procedures for correcting for guessing and for assessing partial knowledge (correction-for-guessing, three-decision scoring, elimination/inclusion scoring, and confidence or probabilistic scoring) are discussed. Mean scores and internal consistency reliability estimates were compared across three administration and scoring procedures for…

Two methods of researching second language learning are described, analyzed, and compared: student diaries giving a first-person account of the second language learning experience; and participant observation, in which the observer is in the language learning situation recording in descriptive terms all possible data about the situation.…

The accuracy of trait estimates obtained from three vertical equating methods was examined. The procedures studied included two anchor test designs and a single-group design. Data from two content areas and two grade combinations were studied. A three-parameter logistic model was used to perform the equatings. The results obtained were used to…

The purposes of this study were to assess the usefulness of a variety of readability formulas in predicting the relative difficulty of passages, and to explore the contribution of pupils' background to text difficulty. Subjects were 285 special education students in grades 1-9, 117 of whom were based in rural and suburban Minnesota (MN) and 168 of…

This investigation of survey research methodology examined the satisfaction differences between anonymous and identified respondents to a client satisfaction survey from a university counseling center. A questionnaire based on the Counseling Services Assessment Blank was mailed to 410 students terminated from counseling during the 1980-81 academic…

This paper investigated the reliability and construct validity of a 30-item scale in measuring the attitudes of teachers in Australia toward the integration of handicapped children into regular schools. The Attitude Toward Mainstreaming Scale, which was designed by Larrivee and Cook (1979), has been used in evaluation studies in the United Sates…

Summarized in this report are the activities undertaken in the development of the Classification of Secondary School Courses (CSSC) for the National Center for Education Statistics' use in coding transcripts of high school students. Fifty-two secondary school course catalogs selected from those collected in the High School and Beyond study…

Three features of High School and Beyond (HS&B) provide rare opportunities for examining the quality of the responses of high school students to group-administered questionnaires: (1) many identical or similar items also were asked in questionnaires completed by about 6,500 of the students' parents; (2) high school transcripts containing…