Background: The development and use of support need instruments for funding disability services is a relatively recent initiative. Although the use of these measures appears at face value to provide an objective measure of support needs, little is known about their psychometric properties, particularly with respect to rater bias and purpose of…

When developing efficient treatment plans for a client or student, professional counselors frequently rely on information about intellectual ability. The Slosson Intelligence Test-Primary (SIT-P; Erford, Vitali, & Slosson, 1999) is an expansion of the Slosson Intelligence Test-Revised (SIT-R; Nicholson & Hibpshman, 1991) and includes a…

This study assesses reading processes and/or strategies needed to deploy deep processing that could push learners towards syntactic-based constructions in L2 classrooms. Research has found L2 acquisition to present varying degrees of success and/or fossilization (Bley-Vroman 1989, Birdsong 1992 and Sharwood Smith 1994). For example, learners have…

Background: Persistent calls for school-based education about stuttering necessitate a better understanding of peer attitudes toward children who stutter and a means to measure outcomes of such educational interventions. Langevin and Hagler in 2004 developed the Peer Attitudes Toward Children who Stutter scale (PATCS) to address these needs and…

Value-added indicators are now a central part of school accountability in England, and value-added information is routinely used in school improvement at both the national and the local levels. This article describes the value-added models that are being used in the academic year 2007-8 by schools, parents, school inspectors, and other…

Objective: Because of the serious nature of psychiatric illness and related problems, the authors attempted to identify demographic, individual, and behavioral factors linked to university students' psychological health. Participants: They surveyed 353 (60.9% female) predominately Caucasian (88.7%) university students attending a large public…

In this commentary, the authors discuss some of the issues regarding the use of diagnostic classification models that practitioners should keep in mind. In the authors experience, these issues are not as well known as they should be. The authors then provide recommendations on diagnostic scoring.

In current psychological research, the analysis of data from computer-based assessments or experiments is often confined to accuracy scores. Response times, although being an important source of additional information, are either neglected or analyzed separately. In this article, a new model is developed that allows the simultaneous analysis of…

Computerized adaptive testing (CAT) has unsurpassable advantages over traditional testing. It has become the mainstream in large scale examinations in modern society. This paper gives a brief introduction to CAT including differences between traditional testing and CAT, the principles of CAT, psychometric theory and computer algorithms of CAT, the…

Objective: Antisocial behavior frequently occurs in families. This study investigated whether autonomic hypoarousal and hyporesponsivity, which have been observed in antisocial individuals of all ages, are passed from fathers to male offspring. Method: The study included 44 boys with early-onset conduct disorder and 36 healthy controls (8 to 13…

An eight-subtest short form (SF8) of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Third Edition (WAIS-III), maintaining equal representation of each index factor, was developed for use with psychiatric populations. Data were collected from a mixed inpatient/outpatient sample (99 men and 101 women) referred for neuropsychological assessment. Psychometric…

The author used Rasch measurement to examine the reliability and validity of 382 Korean university students' scores on the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS; D. P. Crowne and D. Marlowe, 1960). Results revealed that item-fit statistics and principal component analysis with standardized residuals provide evidence of MCSDS'…

The development of standardized tests to assess autism, particularly in young children, is a topic of considerable interest in the research community. Recent years have seen an exponential growth in scales for differential diagnosis. Particular emphasis has been placed on defining and better delineating the symptoms of the disorder relative to…

Conventional wisdom in the area of assessment strongly supports the notion that instruments used for vocational or career decision-making purposes should possess sound psychometric properties. This study is a preliminary attempt to examine the reliability and validity of three important career decision-making measures administered to high school…

The purpose of this study was to develop and gather initial psychometric information on the Self-Regulated Learning Inventory for Teachers (SRLIT). The SRLIT is a self-report scale with 23 items measuring primary school teachers' realisations of self-regulated learning (SRL) practices. Information regarding the instrument's factor structure,…