Objective: To establish the diagnostic validity of sensory overresponsivity (SOR), there is a need to document rates of SOR and the co-occurrence of SOR with other psychiatric disorders. Although this was not a diagnostic study of SOR, this study was designed to investigate rates of elevated SOR symptoms and associations between elevated SOR…

Although reliability is essential to validity, most research on violence risk assessment tools has paid little attention to strategies for improving rater agreement. The authors evaluated the degree to which perceived subjectivity in scoring guidelines for items from two measures--the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) and the Historical,…

The perceived relation between assigned student grades and instructor evaluations of teaching has been the subject of much debate, though few laboratory studies have been conducted with adequate controls. Marsh and Roche suggested that experimental field studies may be a particularly promising avenue for further analyses of this relation. The…

Purpose: This article provides a comprehensive narrative review of intervention studies for children with speech sound disorders (SSD). Its companion paper (Baker & McLeod, 2011) provides a tutorial and clinical example of how speech-language pathologists (SLPs) can engage in evidence-based practice (EBP) for this clinical population. Method:…

The current study examines how using a multidimensional battery of predictors (high-school grade point average (GPA), SAT/ACT, and biodata), and weighting the predictors based on the different values institutions place on various student performance dimensions (college GPA, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs), and behaviorally anchored…

Humphry (this issue) has written a thought-provoking piece on the interpretation of item discrimination parameters as scale units in item response theory. One of the key features of his work is the description of an item response theory (IRT) model that he calls the logistic measurement function that combines aspects of two traditions in IRT that…

Behavioral scientists have struggled with units of measurement for as long as they have struggled with measurement itself. Psychology's sole attempt at an explicit unit of measurement--the Lexile Framework for Reading (Stenner, Burdick, Sanford, & Burdick, 2006)--has been and continues to be ignored by the psychometric "cognoscenti."…

The purpose of this article is to examine the role of the unit in physics in order to clarify the role of the unit in psychometrics. Based on this examination, metrological conventions are used to formulate the relationship between discrimination and the unit of a scale in item response theory. Seminal literature in two lines of item response…

This article presents Stephen Humphry's response to the commentaries for his article "The Role of the Unit in Physics and Psychometrics." The commentaries covered a range of important considerations and implications. Given that the author fully agrees with the majority of the content, attention will be confined mainly to points that call…

Due to increasing demand for education and training in the information age, online learning and teaching is becoming a necessity in our future. However, lack of research goals to understand impact of online learning environments on students is a problem in research on online learning environments. We identified four main research goals to pursue…

Professional development is a necessary component for effectively integrating technology into classrooms. Unfortunately, the evaluation of technology integration professional development (TIPD) rarely moves beyond participation satisfaction surveys, nor does it reflect the concerns of the multiple stakeholders participating in technology…

New and novel uses of evaluation processes and findings are possible when a community of practice develops as evaluation stakeholders participate in multisite evaluations in multiple ways. Developing such communities takes advantage of what makes multisite evaluations special. This chapter uses the example of the Innovative Technology Experiences…

According to the findings of several studies, parents' assessments of their toddler's language are valid and reliable evaluations of children's language competence, especially at early development stages. This study examined whether preschool teachers, who spend a relatively great deal of time with toddlers in various preschool activities and…

This paper argues for a need to develop methods for examining temporal patterns in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) groups. It advances one such quantitative method--Lag-sequential Analysis (LsA)--and instantiates it in a study of problem-solving interactions of collaborative groups in an online, synchronous environment. LsA…

To celebrate the two-year anniversary of the founding of ProSPER.Net--the Promotion of Sustainability in Postgraduate Education and Research Network--members convened on 5-9 July 2010 in Shanghai, China, at a meeting hosted by Tongji University, a founding member. ProSPER.Net is an alliance of 21 higher education institutions in the Asia-Pacific…