This paper presents the results of a study to investigate the effects of including an assessment of adaptive behavior, the Adaptive Behavior Inventory for Children (ABIC), in classifying students. Children in this study were either referred for or currently receiving special education services in a tri-ethnic district of 40,000 students. Three…

A practicum was conducted to design, implement, and evaluate an instrument measuring the relative strengths of task-and nontask-related motivation of child care employees. Designed for child care center employees and supervisors, the instrument consisted of a self-administered demographic checklist and 100 forced-choice pictorial items…

Three test-analysis models were used to analyze three types of simulated test score data plus the results of eight achievement tests. Chi-square goodness-of-fit statistics were used to evaluate the appropriateness of the models to the four kinds of data. Data were generated to simulate the responses of 1,000 students to 36 pseudo-items by…

This volume, "Measurements and Measures" is the second of three Technical Appendices to the National Day Care Study (NDCS) and presents seven individual reports on a series of technical tasks undertaken to support the principal analyses of the effects of key center characteristics on children. Among the topics covered: analysis of…

This paper, focusing on differences between Caucasians and Negroes in the United States, summarizes from a "scientific standpoint" the main facts and theoretical issues involved in the study of human racial differences and behaviors. Three principles are considered to govern the orientation of this document: (1) objective research and…

This report describes an experimental day care program in Amsterdam, begun in 1969 to investigate how a day care center could contribute towards the favorable development of children under four from unskilled and semiskilled families. Because it is only recently that day care for children under four has been used to any extent, this is the first…

This paper begins with the discussion of how certain developments in psychology have influenced present educational methods, and how recent work in learning theory, developmental psychology, and psychometrics strongly suggests new directions for educational research and practice. This theme is discussed in the context of a central problem in…

This book is a collection of papers presented at the symposium, "Conference on Ordinal Scales of Cognitive Development, sponsored by the California Test Bureau. Papers include: "The Theory of Stages in Cognitive Development" (J. Piaget); "Two Approaches to Intelligence: Piagetian and Psychometric" (D. Elkind); "An…

An elementary survey of item characteristic curve theory, centered around the problems of individualized (tailored) testing, is presented. Following the introduction, discussions are provided of the following: Test Theory for Itemized Tests; The Guttman Scale; Item Characteristic Curve Theory; An Alternative Model; Specialization, Application, and…

The premise of this paper is that psychologists need to reconsider the process by which psychological ideas are applied in educational practice. Psychological ideas do not guide educational practice as much as they should because psychologists fail to consider what is happening in the classroom. How a teacher thinks as a psychologist can be…

This article describes the development of the Child Rating Scale (CRS), a socioemotional self-rating scale for elementary school children. Four CRS factors (rule compliance/acting-out, anxiety/withdrawal, interpersonal social skills, and self-confidence) were found consistently across four independent samples totalling more than 2,000 elementary…

This study investigated the predictive validity of the Descriptive Tests of Mathematical Skills (DTMS) and the SAT-Mathematics (SAT-M) tests as placement tools for entering students in a small, liberal arts, historically black institution (HBI) using regression analysis. The placement schema is four-tiered: for a remedial algebra course, college…

In most interest inventories, a single stimulus item is presented and the respondent indicates a preference in terms of degree of like, dislike, or indifference. This approach provides normative scales with scores that may be compared with various group distributions. The forced choice of options adds to the score on the scale for option selected…

The purpose of this study was to develop a psychometrically sound instrument to measure teachers' attitudes toward students with special needs, the Scale of Teacher's Attitudes Toward Inclusion (STATIC). Approximately 1,440 inservice teachers were asked to complete the STATIC. There were 516 respondents from 5 school districts in Alabama. Various…

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of assessment, diagnosis, and treatment planning for individuals with substance abuse problems. The intent is to provide information to professional counselors in school, rehabilitation, school psychology, social work, public mental health, and private treatment settings. Information to be…