A questionnaire developed to measure barriers to help-seeking behavior in adolescents was tested with 280 high school students following a pilot study. The instrument, Barriers to Adolescents Seeking Help, was found to have good test-retest reliability and adequate validity. Its use in identifying adolescents amenable to or resistant to therapy is…

This study assessed the psychometric properties of the Environmental Rating Scale, a measure specifically designed to assess residential treatment programs for individuals with autism. The measure's reliability was demonstrated by assessments of the internal consistency, stability, and interrater reliability. Preliminary analysis of validity…

Paper introduces a collection of papers on educational assessment, noting controversies surrounding both old and new assessment methods, discussing the persistent set of technical issues that must be addressed by the research community in measurement, and examining work by the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student…

The validity of the 600-yard walk/run, the 20-meter shuttle run, and a modified 16-meter shuttle run was determined to measure aerobic capacity (VO2peak) in 34 children with mental retardation (ages 10-17). All field tests were found to be very reliable, and VO2peak was significantly related to them all. (Author/CR)

Describes the development of the Hassles Assessment Scale for Students in College, which measured student stress. Development involved item generation, psychometric evaluation, and revision. Separate student samples participated in each phase. Results found very high levels of internal consistency for the frequency, unpleasantness, and dwelling…

The article presents a psychometric description of 11 statements related to use of physical violence. The items were tested in a normal sample (N=1700, age: 15-16) from urban and rural areas in Western Norway. The internal reliability was @a=0.86, and the factor analysis resulted in two factors. Boys had higher mean scores than girls.…

Understanding help seeking intentions and behaviour is fundamental to the identification of factors that can be modified to increase engagement in counselling. Despite considerable research on these variables, integrating prior research has been impeded by a lack of consistent and psychometrically sound help-seeking measures. The General…

The reliability and, to a lesser extent, the validity of the newly created Number Sense Test was evaluated with a group of 40 3- to 5-year-old children attending Head Start. Six number sense skills (e.g., counting, number identification, addition-subtraction) and children's feelings about school were assessed both before and after instruction…

StrengthsQuest is a student program that focuses on strengths rather than weaknesses. It is intended to lead students to discover their natural talents and gain unique and valuable insights into how to develop such talents into strengths--strengths that equip them to succeed and to make important decisions that enable them to balance the demands…

Evidence is presented regarding the construct validity and internal consistency reliability of scores for an investigator-developed individualized family service plan (IFSP) rating scale. One hundred and twenty IFSPs were rated using a 12-item instrument, the IFSP Rating Scale (McWilliam & Jung, 2001). Using principal components factor…

This study aimed to develop a new scale, the "Supports Scale For Preschool Inclusion" (SSPI), to assess preschool teachers perceptions of necessary factors and availability of supports for a successful inclusion in pre-school educational settings. Pre-school teachers ("n" = 183, mean age = 32.81, standard deviation = 8.29) from…

Previous studies have compared the accuracy of parent, teacher, and clinician ratings of children behavior, especially in diagnostic analysis. However, many have questioned the validity of the tests and the value of each rater. While some research has found differences among raters, few had looked at samples of non-referred children. We wanted to…

The Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI) is being developed for the cross-cultural measurement of subjective wellbeing (SWB). This paper reports the findings of its utility with the Hong Kong Chinese and Australian populations. An item on affect, "satisfaction with own happiness" was also investigated to determine whether it should be added to…

There is increasing pressure, both from institutions central to the national scientific mission and from regional and national accrediting agencies, on natural sciences faculty to move beyond course examinations as measures of student performance and to instead develop and use reliable and valid authentic assessment measures for both individual…

This article presents a psychometric study of the short form of the Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale for Adults (SELSA-S). Data were collected via self-report measures and mail surveys from several samples including university students, spouses of military personnel, and psychiatric patients. A total of 1,526 individuals took part in this…