Use of Tukey's Jackknife in establishing a confidence interval around the population coefficient alpha is explored and the robustness of Feldt's procedure along with ten variants of the Jackknife when the data do not conform to the necessary normality requirements are evaluated. Only two of the variants compared to Feldt's approach. (RC)

Shows that the Harris factors of R have psychometric properties similar to those discussed by Kaiser and Caffrey (1965) and Bentler (1968). Specifically it is shown that the Harris factors of R maximize a lower-bound to the reliability of a composite measure derived by Guttman (1945). (Author/RC)

The educational audit is suggested for assessing the process of inquiry for reliability and the product of inquiry for absence of bias. The inquiry auditor must review the inquiry processes to determine that they conform to norms of "good professional practice." He must review inquiry products to ensure they can be substantiated from…

This paper was written to help local level advocates in the human services understand and use statistical data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Because of budget cuts, difficult times are ahead for human services delivery. Advocates need to strengthen their technical skills. In the first section of the paper, two new programs of published data…

A study was conducted on the measurement of the characteristics of innovation. The results or specific recommendations of evaluation studies may be assessed for their likelihood of adoption and implementation based on these characteristics. As the recommendations are perceived more positively, the level of utilization should increase. The semantic…

A study was initiated by a university rhetoric department to investigate the reliability of methods of rating student themes written as prerequisites for course exemptions. Ten experienced raters were selected to rate the beginning, middle, and ending paragraphs of 30 previously scored exemption themes that represented a range of achievement.…

This study reports the interrater agreement of the Maternal Language Classification Scale (MLCS), a functional language classification system, developed partly to avoid problems identified with previous scales. The MLCS is a comprehensive system for classifying the functional content of maternal language addressed to children whose mean length of…

THIS TEST BATTERY IS DESIGNED TO BE USED AS AN AID IN COUNSELING AND GUIDANCE FOR PUPILS IN THE NINTH AND TENTH GRADES OF ACADEMIC HIGH SCHOOLS IN ISRAEL. AS THE INTENT IS TO MEASURE THE PUPIL'S ABILITY TO DO CRITICAL THINKING IN BROAD AREAS, THE TEST BATTERY MEASURES GENERAL EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT RATHER THAN SPECIFIC ACHIEVEMENT SKILLS IN THE…

A least squares approach to estimating the reliability of a measure consisting of more than three content homogeneous or congeneric parts is proposed. The advantages of this method over a more indirect approach in which certain parts of a measure are combined to use Kristof's or Feldt's coefficients are examined. One hundred four-part tests were…

INVESTIGATION IS CONTINUED INTO VARIOUS EFFECTS OF NON-INDEPENDENT ERROR INTRODUCED INTO MULTIPLE-CHOICE TEST SCORES AS A RESULT OF CHANCE GUESSING SUCCESS. A MODEL IS DEVELOPED IN WHICH THE CONCEPT OF THEORETICAL COMPONENTS OF SCORES IS NOT INTRODUCED AND IN WHICH, THEREFORE, NO ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING ANY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SUCH COMPONENTS NEED…

The object of this study was to validate a technique for establishing inter-rater reliability on the Southwestern Cooperative Interaction Observation Schedule (SCIOS), where it was impractical to bring the observers to a common site. Reliability was originally obtained when eight observers met together. Observers were divided into four pairs. A…

This investigation had two major purposes. The first was to explore the use of an inferential technique called Tukey's Jackknife in establishing a confidence interval about cooefficient alpha reliability. The second purpose was to study the robustness of the Feldt and the jackknife procedures when the data fails to satisfy usual normality…