The development and validation of a Portuguese oral language test are described. The test consisted of five item types: personal conversation, giving directions, description of picture sequences, topical discourse, and oral task completion based on printed instructions. Three preliminary forms of the test were administered to a group of language…

The purpose of this paper is to discuss ways in which developmental psychology suffers from the lack of an appropriate technology of measurement and statistical analysis. The paper begins by noting that developmental psychology is the study of change; that individuals develop through a succession of "stages" which are separated by…

Guidelines for the use of observation instruments in pre-and in-service teachers of the handicapped are provided. It is explained that guidelines have been developed according to the following five principles: (1) the observation instrument must be relevant (including empirical, normative, and interpretative relevance); (2) methods of gathering…

The Answer-Until-Correct (AUC) procedure has been proposed in order to increase the reliability of multiple-choice items. A model for examinees' behavior when they must respond to each item until they answer it correctly is presented. An expression for the reliability of AUC items, as a function of the characteristics of the item and the scoring…

Differences in procedures used by academic institutions and government agencies in administering the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages' Oral Proficiency Interview test are examined, and results and implications of two studies of interrater reliability are discussed. (MSE)

Examined the generalizability of written-response scores on the English 30 diploma examination administered to Alberta 12th-grade students. Student scores differed as a function of rater, but this variance component was small across two tasks and two administrations; score generalizability was high using a two-rater system; and scale variability…

Two studies involving 368 elementary and high school students and 29 readers were conducted to investigate reader consistency, score reliability, and reader time requirements of three hands-on science performance tasks. Holistic scores were as reliable as analytic scores, and there was a high correlation between them after they were disattenuated…

The development of a coding scheme to identify the function of each conversational turn within episodes of conflict in a peer tutoring setting is described, and the scheme, based on Cohen's kappa analysis, is presented. Although 15 codes were developed for the initial effort, 7 codes were finally used to reflect each utterance as: (1) agreement;…

In some situations where reliability must be estimated it is impossible to divide the measuring instrument into more than two separately scoreable parts. In such a case, neither Cronbach's coefficient alpha nor Kristof's three-part approach are satisfactory. A technique is developed for estimating reliability in such situations. (Author/BJG)

Compared Edwards Personality Inventory (EPI) reliability under the Edwards' instructions (subject responds to the items as he believes those who know him best would answer if asked to describe him) versus the more conventional instructions (to describe yourself directly as you see yourself). (Author/RC)

Article attempted to define the concept of mobbing and to develop principles of treatment in connection with cases which really occur, and to use the work in a regular university course providing students with successful personal therapeutic experiences. (Author/RK)

Generalizability theory provides a technique for accurately estimating the reliability of measurements. The power of this theory is based on the simultaneous analysis of multiple sources of error variances. Equally important, generalizability theory considers relationships among the sources of measurement error. Just as multivariate inferential…

The research dealing with the reliability of the Rosenzweig Picture-Frustration Study is surveyed. Analysis of various split-half, and retest procedures are reviewed and their relative effectiveness evaluated. Reliability measures as applied to projective techniques in general are discussed. (Author/DEP)

An alternative derivation of Tryon's basic formula for the coefficient of domain validity or the coefficient of generalizability developed by Cronbach, Rajaratnam, and Glaser is provided. This derivation, which is also the generalized Kuder-Richardson coefficient, requires a relatively minimal number of assumptions compared with that in previously…