The Personality Inventory for Children (PIC) is an objectively scored, multidimensional measure of child and adolescent behavior, affect, and cognitive ability and can be completed by parents. The overall goal of this project was to evaluate the psychometric characteristics of the PIC as a screening device for use with preschool populations. The…

Wheeless' trust and solidarity scales are examined under conditions of positive and negative target person. Valence of stimulus is shown to have a strong influence on the performance of the scales. The problems on Wheeless' scales were not detected in the original validation studies because of the normal validation paradigm. That paradigm…

Current status and new developments in behavioral assessment for clinicians and researchers are discussed. The field of behavioral assessment has attained a recognizable identity in recent years. Behavioral assessment can be defined as the identification of meaningful response units and their controlling variables for the purposes of…

Concern for enhancing construct validity of vocational interest measures provides a focus for scale construction quite distinct from that derived from a criterion-referenced strategy: Construct-oriented measurement implies: (1) substantive definitions of dimensions; (2) concern for internal consistency reliability, as well as generalizability; (3)…

Future research in Follow Through should be eclectic and comprehensive. In particular, the setting for Strand Two of the National Institute of Education's (NIE) research program for Follow Through should provide opportunities for sponsors of innovations to implement programs targeted at many outcomes. There should be a commitment to measuring…

The reliability and validity of the Social Avoidance and Distress (SAD) and Fear of Negative Evaluation (FNE) scales developed by D. Watson and R. Friend (1969) were tested for their use with university students in Thailand. Thai translations of both tests were administered to 176 university students on two occasions, with a month between…

Seventy-five subjects (Naval F-14 and E-2C crew members) were administered computer-based and paper-based tests of threat-parameter knowledge represented as a semantic network in order to determine the relative reliabilities and validities of these two assessment modes. Estimates of internal consistencies, equivalences, and discriminant validities…

The one-parameter psychometric model known as the Rasch model is described and examined. The basic principles underlying the model and the concepts of unidimensionality, local stochastic independence, and additivity are explained in non-mathematical terms. The requirements of measurement procedures, the measurement of latent traits, the control on…

Because touching is an important and often studied construct, and there is need for a valid self-report measure of touching behavior, a measure of touching behaviors was developed. Touching behaviors to be reported were: brief touch on the arm or shoulder, handshake, hug, hand holding, kiss on the cheek, and kiss on the lips. Persons identified as…

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between scores on the multiple-choice General Educational Development (GED) Writing Skills test and scores on holistically graded essays. Secondary purposes included the following: (1) examining the relationship of essay scores to scores on the multiple-choice GED Reading Skills…

Barbara Jordan served as the hearing officer for three-day adversary evaluation hearings about the pros and cons of minimum competency testing (MCT). This report is the complete transcript of the second day of proceedings. The pro team, lead by James Popham, began by presenting representatives of four states (Florida, California, Texas, and…

Because of reliability and validity problems in teacher- and parent-rated early childhood questionnaires, the Preschool Temperament Inventory (PTI) was developed to help teachers assess and appreciate individual differences of children prior to first grade. The PTI uses teacher ratings on eight temperament categories, including activity level,…

One of the major factors for the lack of quality listening research is a lack of knowledge about the process itself. The second major factor is the lack of a reliable and valid listening test. From a review of 107 articles on listening, 38 reports of listening research, and from studies of seven examiner-developed and three commercially-developed…

A 20-year study to monitor moral developmental stages is summarized with a focus on the invariant sequence and internal consistency of each stage. It is theorized that an individual passes through several stages in attaining moral judgment. As children grow older, they are able to integrate diverse points of view on a moral conflict. Each stage…

A study compared General Equivalency Development (GED) program completion and Adult Performance Level (APL) attainment in West Virginia. During the study, 97 GED program participants, who were not exposed to APL instruction or materials, completed the APL survey either just before or immediately after taking the GED examination. Seventy-seven of…