Purpose: We examine the psychometric properties of the Philadelphia Geriatric Morale Scale (PGMS) in an elderly Chinese population in Hong Kong. Design and Methods: The study consisted of two cohorts: (a) 759 participants aged 70 years and older living in the community who were recruited as part of a territory-wide health survey and interviewed in…

Data in social and behavioral sciences are often hierarchically organized. Special statistical procedures that take into account the dependence of such observations have been developed. Among procedures for 2-level covariance structure analysis, Muthen's maximum likelihood (MUML) has the advantage of easier computation and faster convergence. When…

Human performance in cognitive testing and experimental psychology is expressed in terms of response speed and accuracy. Data analysis is often limited to either speed or accuracy, and/or to crude summary measures like mean response time (RT) or the percentage correct responses. This paper proposes the use of mixed regression for the psychometric…

Current methods of assessing and treating aggression in children and adolescents with developmental disabilities were reviewed. While a number of measures have been developed to assess aggression in the general population, there are relatively few assessment methods for use with children and adolescents with developmental disabilities. In all, 54…

The authors describe psychometric characteristics of the new Therapy Process Observational Coding System-Alliance scale (TPOCS-A; B. D. McLeod, 2001) and illustrate its use in the study of treatment as usual. The TPOCS-A uses session observation to assess child-therapist and parent-therapist alliance. Both child and parent forms showed acceptable…

The authors discuss the applicability of nonparametric item response theory (IRT) models to the construction and psychometric analysis of personality and psychopathology scales, and they contrast these models with parametric IRT models. They describe the fit of nonparametric IRT to the Depression content scale of the Minnesota Multiphasic…

The Impact of Event Scale (ES; M. J. Horowitz, N. Wilner, & W. Alvarez, 1979) is a worldwide-used self-report measure to assess the frequency of intrusive and avoidant phenomena after a variety of traumatic experiences. The purpose of this article is to assess the psychometric value of the Dutch version of the IES (D. Brom & R. J. Kleber, 1985) in…

Item response theory was used to investigate the functioning of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 1991, 2003) in several offender populations. With male criminal offenders (N=3,847) as a reference group, differential item functioning analyses were performed for 3 comparison groups: female criminal offenders (N=1,219), male…

The scarce attention to the assessment and evaluation in science education research has been especially harmful for teaching science-technology-society (STS) issues, due to the dialectical, tentative, value-laden, and polemic nature of most STS topics. This paper tackles the methodological difficulties of the instruments that monitor views related…

We investigated the impact of a life-review on college freshmen. Participants included a life-review group of 30 (25 women, 5 men), comparison group of 36 (29 women, 7 men), and six volunteer leaders (three retired and three current faculty or staff). Circles, each with 5 to 7 students and a leader, shared workbook assignments in 14 weekly…

The authors propose a reinforcement-learning mechanism as a model for recurrent choice and extend it to account for skill learning. The model was inspired by recent research in neurophysiological studies of the basal ganglia and provides an integrated explanation of recurrent choice behavior and skill learning. The behavior includes effects of…

Implementing generationally appropriate activities for persons with dementia is a challenging task. Horticulture therapy (HT) addresses this challenge through the use of plants to facilitate holistic outcomes. Utilizing the model of environmental press, the current study sought to analyse adult day service (ADS) participants' responses to HT as…

The theory of work adjustment is useful in addressing the career counseling needs of retirees who want to continue working but who need to explore their career choices before settling on a new occupation or job. This article examines some of the challenges that midlife and older adults face as they plan postretirement careers. Information about…

A conceptual framework is proposed for a psychometric theory of standard setting. The framework suggests that participants in a standard setting process (panelists) develop an internal, intended standard as a result of training and the participant's background. The goal of a standard setting process is to convert panelists' intended standards to…

This article argues that issues surrounding adolescent literacies problematize the relationship between the acquisition of core skills, the need to connect with a more expansive repertoire of literate practices, and a middle school reform initiative that encourages greater connectedness to the world of the adolescent. The terms "public literacy"…