We evaluated the reliability and validity of two oral reading fluency scores for 1-minute equated passages: median score and mean score. These scores were calculated from measures of reading fluency administered up to five times over the school year to students in grades six to eight (n = 1,317). Both scores were highly reliable with strong…

The act of valuing in an evaluation may be perceived in different ways. We consider the multiple theoretic perspectives that govern an evaluator's behavior and present a typology of evaluator valuing roles. Within this typology we describe three ways in which value judgments are typically reached--by stakeholders alone, stakeholders and evaluators…

The goals of this study were to investigate the timing and the mechanism by which two types of model-centered instruction (MCI)--expert modeling (EM) and self-guided modeling (SGM)--might be made increasingly effective, efficient, and engaging for learners with different levels of expertise. The 62 pre-service and in-service evaluators who…

Evaluation capacity building (ECB) has become an area in the evaluation field that is attracting both scholarly attention and the practical work of evaluators. Despite some recent contributions, differing conceptions still exist concerning what constitutes ECB, let alone the nature of the capacity being built. Responding to an earlier call on the…

Approximately, 20% of divorcing couples in the United States require judicial intervention to reach a custody agreement. In such cases, courts often call on child custody evaluators to conduct comprehensive evaluations and recommend custody agreements and services that meet children's best interests. Estimates suggest that allegations of domestic…

Sex differences in adults' observations and ratings of children's aggression was studied in a sample of preschool children (N=89, mean age=44.00 months, SD=8.48). When examining the direct observations made by trained observers, male observers, relative to female observers, more frequently recorded aggressive bouts, especially of boys. On rating…

This study investigates the relationship in L2 writing between raters' judgments of communicative adequacy and linguistic complexity by means of six-point Likert scales, and general measures of linguistic performance. The participants were 39 learners of Italian and 32 of Dutch, who wrote two short argumentative essays. The same writing tasks…

Education, from a student perspective, is largely driven by assessment. An effective assessment tool should be both valid and reliable, yet this is often not achieved. The aim of this literature review is to identify and appraise the evidence base for assessment tools used primarily in evaluating clinical skills of dental students. Methods:…

Despite 11,000 years of honing evaluation skills in order to thrive in some of the harshest climatic conditions on the planet, there are few Alaska Native program evaluators and until a recent exchange with New Zealand "Maori", there was no collective vision for building Alaska Native capacity in program evaluation. This article tells…

The goal of this study was to determine which linguistic aspects of second language speech are related to accent and which to comprehensibility. To address this goal, 19 different speech measures in the oral productions of 40 native French speakers of English were examined in relation to accent and comprehensibility, as rated by 60 novice raters…

The quality of evaluation of essay type answer books involving multiple evaluators for courses with large number of enrollments is likely to be affected due to heterogeneity in experience, expertise and maturity of evaluators. In this paper, we present a strategy to detect anomalies in evaluation of essay type answers by multiple evaluators based…

Background: Cognitive-behavioral therapy with exposure and response prevention (ERP) is an effective treatment for pediatric OCD; however, up to 30 % of children are treatment non-responders and as many as 40% are partial responders. Although poor treatment adherence has been linked to attenuated response in adults with OCD, little research has…

By having their research proposals reviewed and approved by Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), art therapists meet important ethical principles regarding responsibility to research participants. This article provides an overview of the history of human subjects protections in the United States; underlying ethical principles and their application…

Hillsborough County (Fla.) Public Schools had a concern. A review in 2008 of teacher evaluations in the district found that more than 99% of the 12,000 teachers were rated satisfactory or outstanding, and nearly half of high school teachers received perfect scores. While Hillsborough is a high-performing district and has several high schools on…

This Parameter addresses the key concepts that differentiate the forensic evaluation of children and adolescents from a clinical assessment. There are ethical issues unique to the forensic evaluation, because the forensic evaluator's duty is to the person, court, or agency requesting the evaluation, rather than to the patient. The forensic…