The development of the Invitational Teaching Survey (ITS) which measures personally and professionally inviting teacher practices within the framework of invitational education was discussed. The development included initial item identification, validity evidence based on judgments, item selection based on judgments, validity evidence from a…

Recently, a number of studies have reported a high correlation between the supposedly separate traits described as integrated science process skills and formal reasoning ability. The implication has been that these two constructs are different but related. Further implications have been made that a treatment to enhance one "trait" might…

Formative evaluation of instructional materials may not be time efficient or cost effective. Scriven's definition of formative evaluation, used in this paper, applies to the assessment and refinement of instructional materials still under development. Implementation of formative evaluation techniques does not seem to yield significant improvement…

Administering a large scale licensing examination program presents both technical and non-technical challenges. Five major areas are discussed in this paper: (1) ensuring test validity in relation to occupational entry standards; (2) developing test items from valid examination specifications; (3) establishing legally defensible passing scores;…

Three kinds of instructionally sensitive achievement tests are described which provide useful information on formal schooling proficiencies: placement, progress, and attainment tests. Procedures to design, develop, and empirically verify attainment and placement tests are presented. The methodology is designed to ensure that the test instruments…

The plotting of multivariate data using computer line-printers has become a popular means of quickly representing multidimensional data. While many plotting programs are available, there is a paucity of research regarding the validity and reliability of interpretations made by viewing such graphics. This study explores the validity of four…

Research indicates that the media play a role in shaping the information that voters have about election options. Knowledge of those options has been related to actual vote, but has not been shown to be strongly related to uncertainty. Uncertainty, however, does seem to motivate voters to engage in communication activities, some of which may…

A study examined the extent of the role communication encounters play in helping people make accurate predictions about others, and what types of communicators (in terms of communicative reponsiveness and gender) seem to profit most from interaction with the subject of prediction prior to making predictions. Subjects, 118 college students,…

If sociolinguistics involves the specification and analysis of sociological, interpersonal, and pragmatic variables at issue in given language-use situations, and discourse anaysis is the observation and analysis of both linguistic and paralinguistic features of speech events within these situations, there are at least three areas in these…

Complex decision-making environments often demand that a range of alternative strategies be identified and compared for their shared value in achieving desired ends. Simple parametric statistical procedures such as analysis of variance and discriminant function analysis can be used in such situations to compare (using selected criteria) the value…

Using data collected in 95 Ohio school districts by Brock Hunt, this study reanalyzed those data, examined the reasons for Hunt's inability to predict a school board member incumbent's defeat, and developed a model that would have predicted those Ohio school board elections. Hunt attempted to develop a statistical model of socioeconomic-political…

The High School Survey on Drugs was developed to assess the drug attitudes of and usage by high school students. The survey was designed to determine drug usage in a specific geopolitical area and to determine drug education program needs. The questionnaire is easily administered to groups of students. There are three types of questions associated…

The presence of differences between prediction systems for males and females is investigated through a detailed study of clerical specialties in the Marine Corps. When various aptitude composites are used to predict success of recruits in training, sizeable differences in regression functions are found between male and female groups. The paper…

Writing researchers must be concerned with whether the instruments they are using are constructed as soundly as possible and, if so, whether they are performing the necessary analytic procedures to interpret the results correctly. To examine the logic in the construction of J. A. Daly and M. D. Miller's Writing Apprehension Test and the incomplete…

Meta-analysis techniques were used to determine whether or not there are differences in General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB) validity and test scores between samples from the Northern, Southern, and Western United States census areas. The sample consisted of 26,111 subjects from 122 validation studies of the Specific Aptitude Test Battery (SATB).…