Valid and reliable tools to measure mental health are a key requirement to developing a robust evidence base on mental health difficulties and autism. There are several reasons why mental health measures developed for the neurotypical population may not be valid and reliable when used with autistic adults. Using data collected from a national…

A Delphi consensus methodology was used to adapt the Autism Diagnostic Interview--Revised for the assessment of deaf children with suspected autism spectrum disorder. Each Autism Diagnostic Interview--Revised item was considered by a panel of nine international experts in terms of relevance and acceptability. Modifications were proposed and agreed…

Background: Current UK measures of early spoken language comprehension require manipulation of toys and/or verbal responses and are not accessible to children with severe motor impairments. The Computer-Based Instrument for Low motor Language Testing (C-BiLLT) (originally validated in Dutch) is a computerized test of spoken language comprehension…

The Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) is a statutory, summative teacher assessment against nationally prescribed criteria. It is completed for all children in state education in England in summer of the reception year, when September-born children are nearly 6 and summer-born children are turning 5. This research uses quantitative…

Teachers play an important role supporting young people to form their career identities and to make successful transitions into further learning and work. In England, there has been limited research that has looked specifically at the role of teachers and none of which has tried to establish a measure of teacher attitude toward careers work. This…

The Assessment of Language in Adults using Self-reported Skills (ALASS) is an online tool aimed at providing a rapid indication of language-related skills at two levels: basic performance and social use. In Study 1, we have developed and validated a new tool with two objective measures: a lexical decision test and a grammaticality judgement test,…

This article considers the implementation of Emojis as responses within survey research, measuring attitudes towards mathematics in children aged eight and nine years old. Participants answered two multi-item scales. The first required them to provide an Emoji to provide their responses to statements, whilst the second additionally required them…

Background: Childhood familial trauma is a major contributor to psychological disorder. One of its key impacts is insecure attachment style, which impedes the development of close relationships. Trauma-related vulnerability is important to assess in primary school but there is a gap in age-appropriate measurement tools. This paper outlines the…

The Global Education Reform Movement's (GERM) interest in the quality of teaching and teacher effectiveness has focused largely on schools and children's attainment to date, with higher education (HE) remaining an outlier. Yet the neoliberal agenda that has dominated HE policy globally over the last two decades closely reflects the focus and…

In this paper, we set out the first step towards the measurement of learning gain in higher education by putting forward a conceptual framework for understanding learning gain that is relevant across disciplines. We then introduce the operationalisation of this conceptual framework into a new set of measurement tools. With the use of data from a…

Informed by the ideology of 'deliverology', performance measurement has become a core component of how English schools are held accountable for the quality of their provision. A wealth of research conducted in diverse national contexts where this approach has been influential has suggested that the unintended harms it generates -- including a…

This paper aims to present a critical analysis of the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check (PSC), with special focus on the relationship between the UK Department for Education's policy-making and the evidence considered in the process of developing and evaluating the PSC. The reports from the in-house Standards and Testing Agency and from commissioned…

This paper assesses the reliability and validity of the teacher-completed Pupil Behaviour Questionnaire (PBQ), by comparing it to the already extensively validated teacher-completed Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Participants included 2074 primary school children participating in a universal school-based trial and 41 vulnerable…

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has often been used to evaluate efficiency in the context of higher education institutions. Yet there are numerous alternative non-parametric measures of efficiency available. This paper compares efficiency scores obtained for institutions of higher education in England, 2013-2014, using three different methods: the…

Academic buoyancy (AB) is the ability to overcome minor academic setbacks. However, although it seems as though teachers would be well placed to comment on this characteristic in students, no teacher-report measure of AB exists. This study evaluates a teacher-report version of the widely used, student-report, Academic Buoyancy Scale (ABS).…