Assessed five scales as mental health measures for older persons (N=318). The internal consistency reliabilities for the anxiety, depression, and well-being scales were moderately high to high, but the reliabilities for the affect balance scale suggest some caution. Cutting points for the well-being and depression scales are suggested. (Author/JAC)

Examined a Sufi personality typology that describes nine life strategies depicted by a nine-sided figure called the enneagram. Devised an objective 135-item test instrument to differentiate the nine styles, and obtained positive results. Enneagram typology may have diagnostic, prognostic, and heuristic value for studying personality structure and…

Initial assessments of the item characteristics, reliability, and validity of the Inquiry Mode Questionnaire (IMQ) are reported. The IMQ was developed by (Harrison and Bramson) to measure the characteristic thinking style of individuals on five major dimensions: synthesist, idealist, analyst, realist, and pragmatist. (Author/PN)

Responses of 522 middle-class parents to Torrance's Ideal Child Checklist were factor analyzed. Four dimensions were found to underly the 66 items that originally comprised the scale: Factor I, Confident, Aggressive, Well Adjusted; Factor II, Socially Virtuous; Factor III, Negativistic, Critical; and Factor IV, Creative-Intuitive. These dimensions…

A comparison of double as opposed to single multiple-choice questions yielded significant differences in regard to item difficulty, item discrimination, and internal reliability, but not concurrent validity. (Author/PN)

Compared the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities for 35 preschool children identified as being "at risk." Nonsignificant differences were found between Forms L and M of the PPVT-R and the McCarthy GCI.Correlations between the PPVT-R and the McCarthy GCI and Scale scores were significant. (Author)

The Rational Behavior Inventory and other scales of psychological adjustment were administered to mental health outpatients (N=75) who were receiving psychotherapy. Significant correlations were found between all measures in expected directions, and significant pre- to postscale differences identified consistently with expected effects of…

The need for reliable, valid, and economical preschool screening measures to identify psychoeducational problems as mandated by P.L. 94-142 (the Education for All Handicapped Child Act) led to the development of the Minneapolis Preschool Screening Instrument (MPSI). (SW)

Nonrestricted-answer, multiple-choice test items are recommended as a way of including more facts and fewer incorrect answers in test items, and they do not cue successful guessing as restricted multiple choice items can. Examination construction, scoring, and reliability are discussed. (MSE)

Raises questions about the wisdom of relying on any single measure, especially a norm-referenced one such as the ACT, for making selective admission, retention, and certification decisions in teacher education. (FL)