It is recognised increasingly that a large proportion of students in social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) settings have speech and language difficulties (SLD). It is therefore important for school administrators and teachers to understand the links between language and behaviour. This article provides teachers with theoretical…

The paper by Rupp and Templin (2008) is an excellent work on the characteristics and features of cognitive diagnostic models (CDM). In this article, the authors comment on some substantial and methodological aspects of this focus paper. They organize their comments by going through issues associated with the terms "cognitive,"…

Reporting practices in 194 confirmatory factor analysis studies (1,409 factor models) published in American Psychological Association journals from 1998 to 2006 were reviewed and compared with established reporting guidelines. Three research questions were addressed: (a) how do actual reporting practices compare with published guidelines? (b) how…

The process of liberalization and globalization of Indian economy has brought new opportunities and challenges in all areas of human endeavor including education. Educational institutions have to adopt new strategies to make best use of the opportunities and counter the challenges. One of these challenges is how to assess the performance of…

We identified individuals with deficits in musical pitch recognition by screening a large random population using the Distorted Tunes Test (DTT), and enrolled individuals who had DTT scores in the lowest 10th percentile, classified as tune deaf. We examined phonological processing abilities in 35 tune deaf and 34 normal control individuals. Eight…

The acquisition of new skills may be hindered when teaching procedures vary from previously validated approaches or contain errors. In the present study, we compared the acquisition and maintenance of response chains taught using a perfectly implemented system of least prompts and a multiple verbal prompts procedure (i.e., addition of multiple…

The authors examined the robustness of multilevel linear growth curve modeling to misspecification of an autoregressive moving average process. As previous research has shown (J. Ferron, R. Dailey, & Q. Yi, 2002; O. Kwok, S. G. West, & S. B. Green, 2007; S. Sivo, X. Fan, & L. Witta, 2005), estimates of the fixed effects were unbiased, and Type I…

This study examined the social preference nominations (i.e., "liked most" and "liked least") in relation to peer group and classroom social dynamics in a sample of 622 fifth graders from 11 schools in a southeastern state. Liked most and liked least nominations were given to a small concentration of students within classrooms.…

School quality care has become important in many Western countries. A number of self-evaluation instruments have been developed in response. The goal of these instruments is improving the quality of education. One such system, ZEBO, was developed for performing quality assessment in Dutch primary schools. The use of this self-evaluation instrument…

Purpose: This study determined the psychometric properties of a variety of anxiety measures administered to older adults receiving home care services. Design and Methods: Data were collected from 66 adults aged 65 years and older who were receiving home care services. Participants completed self-report and clinician-rated measures of anxiety and…

Donald W. Compton, the first director of evaluation services at the National Home Office (Atlanta) of the American Cancer Society, tells the story of building the unit in conditions of high demand and a limited budget. Along the way, evaluation was brought to regional divisions and to local offices in part as a response to United Way and to his…

Many species of top predators are threatened, in large part, because of human destruction. Although conservation programs that include captive breeding, release, and research are vital, environmental education is just as important for the long-term survival of many wildlife species. In Panama, The Peregrine Fund developed an education program to…

The present study describes the development and pilot testing of the Observation System for Recording Physical Activity in Children-Home version. This system was developed to document physical activity and related physical and social contexts while children are at home. An analysis of interobserver agreement and a description of children's…

Ohio's Butler Tech has been able to improve its student performance results from near the worst in Ohio to among the best in six years. At Butler Tech, performance measures are collected and analyzed on a regular basis at all levels of the institution to serve as constant feedback on how well the school is educating its students. In this article,…

Competitive goal orientations were rated by self, peers, and teachers for 38 gifted- and 38 regular-program, same-sex, friendship dyads (19 female and 19 male) from grades 7 and 8 (N = 152). Gifted dyads were reassessed on friendship quality and stability at the end of the school year and after the summer. Gifted students were more task-oriented…