In reply to criticism of the Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS) by J. Wood, M. Nezworski, and W. Stejskal (1996), this article presents a meta-analysis of published data indicating that the CS has excellent chance-corrected interrater reliability. It is noted that the erroneous assumptions of Wood et al. make their assertions about validity…

G. Meyer (1997) attempts to refute the present authors' criticisms of the interrater reliability of the Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS) but misrepresents their position and offers a flawed meta-analysis in support of his own. Rorschach proponents need to undertake high-quality replicated studies of CS reliability and validity. (SLD)

Replies to Wood et al. and documents limitations of their conclusions about the Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS), supporting Meyer's own meta-analysis, which finds adequate interrater reliability for the CS. (SLD)

Adolescents (n=99) with learning disabilities were administered the Test of Memory and Learning (TOMAL) (C. Reynolds and E. Bigler, 1994), and Cronbach's alpha was calculated based on their responses. Alpha values were also computed for a control group. TOMAL performance of adolescents with learning disabilities tends to be as reliable as…

Item-discrimination indices are numbers calculated from test data that are used in assessing the effectiveness of individual test questions. This article asserts that the indices are so unreliable as to suggest that countless good questions may have been discarded over the years. It considers how the indices, and hence overall test reliability,…

Discusses sampling bias problems in the use of the greatest lower bound (g.l.b.) to reliability and offers explicit expressions for the second order derivatives. This yields closed form expression for the asymptotic bias of both the g.l.b. and its numerator. Illustrates the approach through a numeric example. (SLD)

Undergraduate students (N=264) completed the Parent and Peer Influence Scale (PPI). The scale demonstrated strong reliability as well as face and concurrent validity. The PPI can be used both by researchers to address contradictions in the literature, as well as clinicians seeking to evaluate levels of peer influence in a family. (Author/MKA)

Examined intra- and inter-rater consistency of item performance estimated from an Angoff standard setting over 2 years, with 29 panelists one year, and 30 the next. Results provide evidence that item performance estimates were consistent within and across panels within and across years. Factors that might have influenced this high degree of…

In 4 treatment groups, college students (n=115) made judgments of favorable and unfavorable occupations using Kelly's Role Construct Repertory Test. One week later they rerated their individual lists of 12 occupations and the constructs provided or elicited from them. Although reliabilities were moderately high, there was considerable variability…

Explores the heuristic value of a typological approach for preventing and studying school dropout. Empirically builds a typology of dropouts based on individual school experiences, tests the typology's reliability by replicating the classification with two different longitudinal samples, and examines the typology's predictive and discriminant…

Derives the asymptotic normal distribution of the maximum likelihood estimator of Cronbach's alpha (under normality) for the case when no assumptions are made about the covariances among items. Also considers the asymptotic distribution for the special case of compound symmetry and when compared to the exact distribution. (Author/SLD)

This study examined the feasibility of using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in auditory research by testing the reliability of scanning parameters using high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratios. Findings indicated reproducibility within and across listeners for consonant-vowel speech stimuli and reproducible results within and…

Describes a structural equation model that permits estimation of the reliability index and coefficient of a composite index for congeneric measures. The method is also helpful in exploring the factorial structure of an item set, and its use in scale reliability estimation and development is illustrated. (SLD)

Submitted the Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (MARS) (F. Richardson and R. Suinn, 1972) to a reliability generalization analysis to characterize the variability of measurement error in MARS scores across administrations and identify characteristics predictive of score reliability variations. Results for 67 analyses generally support the internal…

Evaluated the alternate forms reliability of new versus old tasks of the Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS) (A. Fisher, 1993). Participants were 44 persons from the AMPS database. Results support good alternate forms reliability of the motor and process ability measures and suggest that the newly calibrated tasks can be used reliably in…