Dementia because of Alzheimer's disease (AD) commonly affects older adults with Down's syndrome (DS). Methods are needed, with established concurrent and predictive validity, to facilitate the diagnostic assessment of dementia, when it is complicated by pre-existing intellectual disabilities (ID). We report on the reliability and validity of a…

The purpose of this research was to establish the concurrent and predictive validity of the Phelps Kindergarten Readiness Scale, Second Edition (PKRS-II; L. Phelps, 2003). Seventy-four kindergarten students of diverse ethnic backgrounds enrolled in a northeastern suburban school participated in the study. The concurrent administration of the…

Numerous existing measures assess attitudes toward suicide yet fail to account for contextual factors. The Trinity Inventory of Precursors to Suicide (TIPS) is presented as an alternative, with implications for the development of prevention programs. Having previously reported exploratory analysis of the TIPS; confirmatory factor analysis and…

The paper reports on an examination of predictors of success for an "objects-first" course. The predictors considered included prior programming experience, mathematical ability, academic and psychological variables, gender, and measures of student effort. Cognitive and academic factors such as SAT scores and critical thinking ability…

The United States Court Interpreters Act (US Congress, 1978) requires that interpreters in US federal courts be certified through a criterion-referenced performance test. The Federal Court Interpreter Certification Examination (FCICE) is a two-phase certification battery for federal court interpreters. Phase I is a multiple-choice Written…

Research was conducted to evaluate how well the "Indiana Reading Assessment--Kindergarten" evaluates various reading skills of kindergarten students. Multiple analyses were conducted; while the results of all the analyses were encouraging, the results derived from the concurrent validity study were most significant. All correlations were…

This study investigated the relationships between graduate students' placement test scores for English as a second language (ESL) and three measures of academic performance (grade point average [GPA], faculty evaluations, and student self-assessments). Qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques (archival, questionnaires, and…

Virtual schooling has the potential to offer K-12 students increased access to educational opportunities not available locally, but comparatively high dropout rates continue to be a problem, especially for the underserved students most in need of these opportunities. Creating and using prediction models to identify at-risk virtual learners, long a…

Teacher preparation programs have continued to see the ever-increasing control of teacher candidates by policymakers. To control means to regulate. The problem, according to these authors, is that there are currently at least three regulating measurement and assessment obstacles faced by teacher candidates in teacher preparation programs. The…

The purpose of this study was to test and assess the reliability and validity of a modified stress scale in a sample of pharmacy graduate students. The modified stress scale was used as part of a larger, nationwide, study whose aim was to investigate the association of stress, perceived academic success and health-related quality of life among…

Self-stigma is an important factor in people's decisions not to engage in therapy. To measure this construct, the authors developed the 10-item Self-Stigma of Seeking Help (SSOSH) scale. In Study 1 (n = 583), the SSOSH had a unidimensional factor structure and good reliability (0.91) among participants. Study 2 (n = 470) confirmed the factor…

Education is a social practice and the ability to interact socially is important to social cognitive learning and social learning. Online education is frequently criticized because it lacks social interaction, a sense of social engagement, and the benefits of learning with others. Social ability with computer-mediated social mechanisms is key to…

How do scores from writing samples generated by computerized essay scorers compare to those generated by ''untrained'' human scorers and what combination of scores, if any, is more accurate at placing students in composition courses? This study endeavored to answer this two-part question by evaluating the correspondence between writing sample…

Phonological awareness (PA), phonological memory (PM), and phonological access to lexical storage (also known as RAN), play important roles in acquiring literacy. We examined the convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of these phonological processing abilities (PPAs) in 147 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children whose native language was…

Results of longitudinal studies suggest that the stability of preferences varies across individuals, although it is unclear what variables account for these differences. We extended this work by conducting periodic assessments of preference for leisure activities over 3 to 6 months with 10 adults with developmental disabilities. Although previous…