Preschool-age children who are experiencing delays in physical, cognitive, communication, social, emotional, or adaptive development are often referred for a comprehensive assessment to make diagnostic determinations and to help develop appropriate interventions. Typically cognitive assessment has a key role in a comprehensive evaluation of a…

Objective: To describe the development and validation of the Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale (STSS), a 17-item instrument designed to measure intrusion, avoidance, and arousal symptoms associated with indirect exposure to traumatic events via one's professional relationships with traumatized clients. Method: A sample of 287 licensed social…

The present study provides information on the reliability and validity of the Transracial Adoption Parenting Scale (TAPS), a multidimensional 36-item Likert-type scale that measures cultural competence among transracial adoptive (TRA) parents. The TAPS was theoretically developed and refined through feedback from experts in TRA adoption. A…

Longitudinal, student performance-based, value-added accountability models have become popular of late and continue to enjoy increasing popularity. Such models require student data to be vertically scaled across wide grade and developmental ranges so that the value added to student growth/achievement by teachers, schools, and districts may be…

The factor structure, psychometric properties, and relationship with personality variables of a Spanish version of the Savings Inventory-Revised (SI-R) are investigated in a sample of 381 undergraduate students. A maximum likelihood factor analysis suggests a three-factor structure, which is similar but not identical to that of the original…

In this study, the authors examined the construct validity of the Pervasive Developmental Disorder Rating Scale (PDDRS; R. C. Eaves, 1993), which is a screening instrument used to identify individuals with autistic disorder and other pervasive developmental disorders. The PDDRS is purported to measure 3 factors--arousal, affect, and…

The authors undertook a review of measures available for assessing outcomes of early childhood services for children with disabilities and their families. With principles of family-centered practice mandating the inclusion of both family and child outcome measures in effective evaluation plans, the review examined measures with established…

This study describes the implementation of the Assessment of Learner-Centered Practices (ALCP) surveys in 4 English schools, 3 primary schools and 1 secondary school during the academic year 2002-2003. The ALCP teacher and student surveys for grades kindergarten through 12 were developed and validated with over 25,000 students and their teachers…

This study describes the development of the Attitude Toward Grades (ATG) survey instrument, a brief internally consistent measure of college student attitude toward grades and reports on selected behavioral correlates of that attitude. An initial item pool of approximately 50 attitude statements was created and the Thurstone equal appearing…

The Raggio Evaluation of Attention Deficit Disorder (READD) is an objective measure for the diagnosis and management of attention deficit disorder (ADD) in children. Extensive research has been conducted on its clinical and psychometric properties, as described in Chapter 3, "Development and Standardization." The READD is a microcomputer…

This study used data from 992 cases in 16 longitudinal studies of the Early Intervention Research Institute to evaluate five measures of family functioning: (1) Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale-III; (2) Family Support Scale; (3) Family Resources Scale; (4) Parenting Stress Index; and (5) Family Inventory of Life Events.…

The development of the Polish Proficiency Test, a standardized, nationally-normed test of listening and reading comprehension for English-speaking learners of Polish, is reported. An introductory chapter provides background information about the test's development, including discussion of the relationship between the test and Polish language…

Early childhood special educators recognize the necessity of establishing indices of reliability and validity for instruments that provide an index of developmental status. Many such instruments present little empirical evidence regarding psychometric integrity, particularly for a non-normative sample. The 341-item Battelle Developmental Inventory…

A Writing Anxiety Scale (WAS) was developed. A literature review and interviews with writing instructors identified nine components of writing behavior (Empathy, Expression, Evaluation by Others, Motivation, Organization, Procrastination, Self-Esteem, Technical Skills, and Writing Anxiety). A pool of 146 items were written to reflect the…

Two papers are presented that resulted from the Instructional Assessment Project of the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing. Both relate to models for assuring assessment validity. The first paper--"Assessing the Content Validity of Teachers' Reports of Content Coverage and Its Relationship to Student…