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…

Examined the scale characteristics of two measures of organizational commitment. Using data from l,l05 accountants, findings indicated that while both instruments exhibited a high degree of internal reliability, the Porter et al. (1947) instrument exhibited significantly greater predictive validity with respect to intended turnover than the…

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)

The School of Architecture faculty posed the methodological problem to construct a scale of 10 items or less to reliably evaluate instruction at different levels of technical and artistic instruction. Among the first 10 ordered items were: "The instructor did a good job" and "The course was worthwhile." (CM)

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)

Investigated item bias on six subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised for four sociocultural groups (N=950), Anglo, Black, Chicano, and Native American Papago (NAP). Results of statistical indexes indicated no or negligible bias against Blacks and Chicanos. Found evidence suggesting bias in some verbal scales with NAPs.…

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised protocols from two vocational counseling clients were scored by 19 psychologists and 20 graduate students. Regardless of scorer's experience level, mechanical scoring error produced summary scores varying by as much as 4 to 18 IQ points. (Author/RC)

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)

Explored the relationship between the Revised Peabody Picture Vocabulary test (PPVT-R) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) for a sample of 38 mentally retarded children. Found the PPVT-R correlated significantly with the WISC-R Verbal Performance and Full Scale IQ scores. (Author)

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)

Investigations of the Inventory of Learning Processes (ILP) with college freshmen revealed satisfactory internal consistency coefficients for two of the four ILP scales but cast doubt on the factor structure of the inventory. As predictors of grade point average of Australian students, the scales were successful. (Author/GK)

Thirty nine 11-year-old children were given the same unilateral word-naming task on two separate occasions. A test-retest reliability of .46 was a function of both reading ability and sex. (Author)

Achievement test reliability and validity as a function of ability were determined for multiple sections of a large undergraduate French class. Results did not support previous arguments that decreasing the number of options results in a more efficient test for high-level examinees, but less efficient for low-level examinees. (Author/GK)