The psychometric properties of the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form (PSI-SF) were examined in a sample of 185 mothers and fathers. Factor analysis revealed 2 reasonably distinct factors involving parental distress and dysfunctional parent-child interactions. Both scales were internally consistent, and these scales were correlated with measures of…

Control beliefs and social relationships have been individually assessed in relation to adaptation to chronic illness, although only rarely together. Further, some control scales show psychometric limitations in older adult samples. To address these concerns, a scale assessing external control was created by factor analyzing the items from…

In 2000, the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) laid out a definition of competence that included six specific areas of focus: patient care (including clinical reasoning), medical knowledge, practice-based learning and improvement, interpersonal and communication skills, professionalism, and systems-based practice. The…

The National Study of Living-Learning Programs (NSLLP) survey instrument was designed to assess college environments and student learning and development outcomes associated with participation in living-learning programs. Data from the NSLLP show that students in living-learning programs demonstrate higher self-reported engagement and outcomes…

The Kinship Center Attachment Questionnaire (KCAQ) is a newly developed screening instrument completed by the caregiver and appropriate for use with children younger than 6 years. The KCAQ is different from other attachment instruments because it is a time-efficient, quantitative measure of child attachment that is capable of tracking change in…

Communication between children and parents has been the subject of several studies, examining the effects of, for example, disclosure and secrecy on adolescents' social relationships and adjustment. Less attention has paid to adolescent deception. We developed and tested a new instrument on lying behavior in a sample of 671 parent-adolescent…

This paper reports the results of three studies designed to test the nomological validity of a consumer well-being (CWB) measure in relation to personal transportation. The CWB measure was developed guided by the theoretical notion that the CWB in relation to personal transportation vehicles is significantly enhanced when the consumption of the…

We proposed a higher order latent construct of parenting young children, parenting quality. This higher-order latent construct comprises five component constructs: demographic protection, psychological distress, psychosocial maturity, moral and cognitive reflectivity, and parenting attitudes and beliefs. We evaluated this model with data provided…

Contrasts between constructed response items and stem-equivalent multiple-choice counterparts typically have involved averaging item characteristics, and this aggregation has masked differences in statistical properties at the item level. Moreover, even aggregated format differences have not been explained in terms of differential cognitive…

This monograph presents a compilation and analysis of published reviews of 142 commercially available assessment instruments and practices relevant for use in transition planning for students with disabilities. An introductory paper describes the data collection and analysis process involved in the review of instruments. It notes that analysis of…

A field study with 178 candidates for a police promotional examination was conducted to investigate the effects of "untranslated" behavioral checklists on certain psychometric properties of an assessment center. The untranslated checklist used all behavioral responses elicited by the assessment center exercises, not just those that met a…

In an effort to improve instruction related to psychometrics and psychological testing for beginning psychology majors, an approach was developed at Pennsylvania's Ursinus College that incorporates active, participatory learning and problem solving. The approach is used in a course on research methods and makes use of a networked computer system…

Computerized adaptive testing (CAT), while well-grounded in psychometric theory, has had few large-scale applications for high-stakes, secure tests in the past. This is now changing as the cost of computing has declined rapidly. As is always true where theory is translated into practice, many practical issues arise. This paper discusses a number…

Technical aspects of the first followup survey for the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) are documented and summarized. Some information overlaps materials in the users' manuals for this followup, such as the overview and general descriptions of data collection, sampling, weighting, variance estimation, nonresponse patterns,…

Political and legislative pressures have posed a number of measurement issues and challenges to the development of sound, valid voluntary national tests (VNTs). This paper focuses on what appear to be the most difficult technical issues related to the VNT proposed by President Clinton in 1997. Technical issues refer to psychometric issues, as…