As illuminated forcefully by Professor Newton's provocative analytical and historical excursion, as long as tests are employed to practical ends (prediction, selection, etc.) there is little cause for the metatheoretic angst that occasions rounds of papers on the topic of validity. But then, also, there seems little need, within this context of…

I congratulate Paul E. Newton on a thoughtful and evenhanded contribution to test validity theory. I especially appreciate the evident care that went into interpreting the various authors whose work Newton discusses. I found many useful insights along with the few minor points with which I might quibble. I comment on three aspects of Newton's…

The scoring process is critical in the validation of tests that rely on constructed responses. Documenting that readers carry out the scoring in ways consistent with the construct and measurement goals is an important aspect of score validity. In this article, rater cognition is approached as a source of support for a validity argument for scores…

In this commentary, the author focuses on the use of design elements for increasing the severity of causal mediation tests. The estimation of causal mediation effects from observational data rests on rather stringent assumptions. In introducing and exemplifying ratio-of-mediator-probability weighting (RMPW), Hong and Nomi (henceforth HN) make…

In the present study, the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (CAAS)--which aims to measure concern, control, curiosity, and confidence as psychosocial resources for managing occupational transitions, developmental tasks, and work traumas--was translated into Turkish in order to examine the factor structure and psychometric characteristics of the scale…

The Test Of Astronomy STandards (TOAST) is a comprehensive assessment instrument designed to measure students' general astronomy content knowledge. Built upon the research embedded within a generation of astronomy assessments designed to measure single concepts, the TOAST is appropriate to measure across an entire astronomy course. The TOAST's…

Introduction: The current study demonstrates empirical and cultural validity of "La Clave Profesional" (Spanish adaptation of Career Key, Jones's test based Holland's RIASEC model). The process of providing validity evidence also includes a reflection on personal and career development and examines the relationahsips between RIASEC…

Because listening has received little attention and the validation of ability scales describing multidimensional skills is always challenging, this study applied a multistage, criterion-referenced approach that used a framework of aligned audio passages and listening tasks to explore the validity of the ACTFL and related listening proficiency…

Over the past 20 years, the status of adolescent health has deteriorated at an alarming rate. The National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) proposed six standards that identified characteristics of a physically educated individual. Some of these standards address constructs that can be framed in the self-determination theory.…

Results from the Survey of Adult Skills, also known as PIAAC (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies), were recently made available for 24 participating countries. PIAAC involves several developments in relation to the earlier international "adult skills" surveys (IALS in the 1990s and ALL in the 2000s), notably…

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability and the most common known genetic cause of autism. FXS is associated with psychiatric impairments, including anxiety disorders. There is a paucity of well-developed measures to characterize anxiety in FXS. However, such scales are needed to measure therapeutic…

We administered the Family Adjustment Measure to 368 parents of children with special needs to identify positive adjustment. We randomly split the sample to conduct exploratory factor analysis ("n" = 194) and confirmatory factor analysis ("n" = 174). Results indicated four possible subscales and that explain 51% of the variance.

As globalization becomes commonplace and the world becomes increasingly interconnected, institutions of higher education have begun to prioritize the development of intercultural competence in their students. In order to measures intercultural competence, the authors developed the "Wesleyan Intercultural Competence Scale" (WICS). The…

Objective: This study examines the factor structure of the Brief Symptom Inventory-18 (BSI-18; Derogatis, 2001) in a hard-to-reach population of mainly undocumented migrant Latino day laborers. While, the BSI-18 has been found to be a valid and reliable measure of psychological distress, cross-cultural assessments in sub-groups of Latinos are…

There is empirical evidence to suggest that oral language and vocabulary on entering kindergarten are the best predictors of later reading success. Identifying skills that are predictive of later achievement using psychometrically sound measurement methods is a necessary component of early intervention efforts. Currently, there are limited methods…