Knowing relevant information about students entering the higher education (HE) system is becoming increasingly important, thus enabling higher education institutions (HEIs) to design effective studentcentred support programmes. Therefore, HEIs should ascertain all relevant information about their students before the commencement of the academic…

After a brief introduction and discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of questionnaires, this publication explains how to develop a questionnaire. Each of the five parts of a questionnaire (heading, procedural statements, items, comment space, and procedures for return) are discussed, with concrete examples. Guidelines for pre-test/tryout…

A basic consideration in conducting a career education needs assessment is whether to select published tests or to develop new instruments and evaluation techniques. Advantages of published tests are availability and convenience and ease to use. Advantages in using self-developed measures can be seen by examining a needs assessment study in which…

The Street Survival Skills Questionnaire was administered to 55 mentally retarded adults, along with Part I of the Public School Version of the Adaptive Behavior Scale with the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. Three subtests of the questionnaire were operationalized using actual stimulus materials. Results support the appropriateness of this…

This year marks the seventh edition of the "Summary of State Student Assessment Programs" (SSAP) and the third year that the Council of Chief State School Officers has conducted the survey on which the summary is based on its own. The survey summarizes what is happening in statewide assessment programs and provides information on trends…

Attachment theory asserts that human beings are innately programmed to seek and form attachments with others. The assumption that the quality of early attachment relationships will be functionally related to subsequent attachment styles and competencies provides the theoretical basis for extending the theory of attachment to the study of adult…

The use of a questionnaire to learn of student reactions to their own test behavior, perceived test characteristics, and several aspects of the testing situation for a university psychometric entrance examination is analyzed, and other practical applications of such tests are considered. The questionnaire is included. (MSE)

This manual explains how to construct a questionnaire. It is intended for the novice researcher who has little experience in questionnaire construction. The first seven chapters discuss the following seven stages in questionnaire development: (1) establishing the guiding questions; (2) operationalizing and clarifying the guiding questions; (3)…

The evaluation instruments used in the Tennessee Career Ladder program are described, and their evolution over the first three years of program implementation is traced. The instruments are designed to measure teacher performance and to determine outstanding teachers. They include: the Career Ladder Test of Professional Skills (a multiple-choice…

Results from a translated and revalidated measure of moral judgment completed by 161 Belgian adolescents and young adults and from a measure of religious judgment completed by 142 subjects support the usefulness of a questionnaire to measure religious judgment and provide information about its relationship to moral judgment in young adults. (SLD)

The development and validation of a new instrument, the School-Level Environment Questionnaire (SLEQ), are described. The SLEQ measures teachers' perceptions of psychosocial dimensions of the environment of the school. The SLEQ consists of 56 items, each scored on a five-point scale, and grouped in eight scales: (1) student support; (2)…

Self-report ergometric inventories can provide valuable information to employers and can serve as a means of intervention to improve employee attributes. Based on the science of ergonomics (a science that studies the natural laws of work in order to maximize human efficiency in job performance), such an inventory focuses on the interaction of the…

This paper addresses the cross-cultural development and use of the Behavior Description Index (BDI). The development of culturally-transportable scales; cross-cultural comparisons of results for 12 Spanish, 15 Hungarian, 15 Indonesian, and U.S. managers; and the transportability of competencies as constructs are considered. A competency is an…

One way for agencies to reduce fiscal stress is to minimize employee turnover. A project undertaken by San Bernardino County (California) to reduce employee turnover through the development, validation, and use of a non-traditional worker selection instrument (biographical inventory) is described. This project was aimed at the specific…

The development of the Polish Proficiency Test, a standardized, nationally-normed test of listening and reading comprehension for English-speaking learners of Polish, is reported. An introductory chapter provides background information about the test's development, including discussion of the relationship between the test and Polish language…