Investigates the use of "vague quantifiers" (terms such as "often,""sometimes,""rarely," or "never") in communication research. Finds that these words do not always mean the same thing to different people, and thus may not constitute interval scales. Suggests that research outcomes based upon such…

Multidimensional scaling was applied to Women-in-General (n=300) and Men-in-General (n=300) samples of the Strong Interest Inventory. Participants were matched on occupational title, obtaining two-dimensional solutions that demonstrated gender differences in the underlying structure of vocational interests. (SK)

A school system cannot restructure or transform itself without trust. The process demands a shared belief system--belief in the leadership, the integrity of all participants, the vision they develop, and agreed-upon goals. An essential part of earning trust is communicating with the community. (MLH)

In a national survey of 2,963 professional women, the Trauma Symptom Checklist was found to be reliable and to display predictive validity in regard to childhood sexual victimization. Women who reported a sexual abuse history scored significantly higher than did women with no such history on each of the six subscales. (Author/DB)

Tests the hypotheses that overconfidence occurs when strength is high and weight is low and that underconfidence occurs when weight is high and strength is low in 4 experiments with 153 students. Discusses weighing evidence, overconfidence/underconfidence in intuitive judgments, and item difficulty's effect on overconfidence. Relates the…

Presents preliminary psychometric data for two inventories that assess conflict in couples. Discusses factor structure of items, internal consistency and one-year stability of composite scores, relationship between couple members' composite scores, and link between composite scores and relationship satisfaction, change in satisfaction, and…

An asymmetric version of J. Cohen's kappa statistic is presented as an appropriate measure for the agreement between two observers classifying items into nominal categories, when one observer represents the "standard." A numerical example with three categories is provided. (SLD)

Reviews NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI), which is based on Five-Factor Model taxonomy of personality traits. Summarizes characteristics of test, features for administration and scoring, and studies of reliability, stability, and validity. Claims NEO-PI may be particularly appropriate for use in counseling because it is brief,…

Discussion of data quality examines five approaches to defining data in the literature; considers criteria of adequacy; proposes a modeling activity; discusses the most important dimensions of data quality, including accuracy, precision and reliability, currentness, completeness, and consistency; and suggests further research. (Contains 44…

Developed bipolar Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) Optimism-Pessimism (PSM) scale based on results on Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanation applied to MMPI. Reliability and validity indices show that PSM scale is highly accurate and consistent with Seligman's theory that pessimistic explanatory style predicts increased…

Conducted four studies in attempt to determine reliability and validity of state and trait versions of Depression Adjective Check Lists (DACL) with college students. Findings revealed that the DACL reliability and validity were sufficiently high to justify use of Depression Adjective Check Lists in research with college students. (Author/NB)

Proposes a new method, reliability generalization, for meta-analysis. Reliability generalization characterizes the typical reliability of scores for a test across studies, the amount of variability in reliability coefficients, and the sources of this variability. Analysis of 87 reliability coefficients for two scales of the Bem Sex Role Inventory…

The factor structure of the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) (M. Kovacs, 1992) was evaluated in a community sample of 1777 children and 924 adolescents. There were five first-order factors for the child group, and the same five plus one more for the adolescents. Results support the stability and predictability of the obtained factor…

The reliability and validity of the Perceived Occupational Opportunity Scale and Perceived Occupational Discrimination Scale were tested with 231 black undergraduates. Additional support was obtained using data from 105 black and 72 white high school students. (SK)

Examined the degree to which coefficient alpha is affected by including items with different distribution shapes within a unidimensional scale. Computer simulation results indicate that reliability does not increase dramatically as a result of using differentially shaped items within a scale. Discusses implications for test construction. (SLD)