By the end of the kindergarten, students are expected to possess early academic skills as well as the social maturity to be successful in first grade. Students leaving kindergarten without these readiness skills are sometimes held back in first grade or referred for a special education evaluation in later grades if they fail to make adequate…

The single most commonly reported physical activity in public health surveys is walking. As evidence accumulates that walking is important for preventing weight gain and reducing the risk of diabetes, there is increased need to capture this behavior in a valid and reliable manner. Although the disadvantages of a self-report methodology are well…

The purpose of this study was to extend the research on the "Tests of Early Numeracy" (TEN) by following a cohort of 61 students from kindergarten through first grade. Specifically, this study examined the relationship between kindergarten and first-grade TEN measures built within and across school years and their predictive validity of a math…

Determining individual potential for performance within multicultural environments is important in the increasingly globalised workplace. The Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) and the Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (SEQ) aim to measure such professional effectiveness. In a study using student and faculty samples in an international…

Objective: This study evaluates the factor structure and internal consistency of the Gregory Research Beliefs Scale (GRBS). Method: Data were collected from subject matter experts, a pilot study, an online sample, and a classroom sample. Psychometric analyses were conducted after combining the online and classroom samples. Results: An a priori…

With the economic downturn starting in December 2007 (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2009), K-12 school systems, educational non-profits and institutions of higher education have found themselves questioning the degree to which they can rely on outside philanthropic giving to support their activities. Although some research has examined the…

Aim: The objective of this study was to investigate which attentional components are of predictive utility in differentiating children with attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder, combined type (ADHD-C) from their peers without ADHD. Methods: Thirty-four children participated in the study: 17 males with ADHD-C (mean age 10y 4mo, SD 1y 9mo) and…

Federal legislation has prescribed the increased use of statewide achievement tests as the culmination of a student's knowledge and ability at the end of a grade level; however, schools need to be able to predict those who are at-risk of performing poorly on these high-stakes tests. Three studies served to identify a means of predicting statewide…

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has been associated with organizational effectiveness in many studies. Therefore, it is important to learn more about how these behaviors can be improved in schools. Creating a reliable and valid measure of OCB that has conceptual equivalence across cultures is a first step in understanding and…

Recent research attributes the lack of merit pay in teaching to the resistance of teachers. This paper examines whether the structure of merit pay affects the types of teachers who support it. We develop a model of the relative utility teachers receive from merit pay versus the current fixed schedule of raises. We show that if teachers are risk…

A common problem in predictive validity studies in the educational and psychological fields, e.g. in educational and employment selection, is restriction in range of the predictor variables. There are several methods for correcting correlations for restriction of range. The aim of this paper was to examine the usefulness of two approaches to…

The Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities (ABLA) test is a useful assessment and training tool for persons with developmental disabilities. The present study assessed the predictive validity of the ABLA test with 16 children diagnosed with an autistic spectrum disorder, eight who performed at ABLA Level 4 and eight who performed at ABLA Level 6.…

In response to the shift from a system-centred care model to a person-centred support model, the Supports Intensity Scale (SIS) has been developed as an instrument to assess the support needs of persons with intellectual disabilities. The instrument is used as a tool for constructing individual support plans, as well as a tool for resource…

Medical schools can assist students by providing them with quality career counseling to help them choose a medical specialty. Many schools use interest inventories to help identify students' specialty interests. This study examined the predictive validity of one such inventory, the Medical Specialty Preference Inventory (MSPI). In a longitudinal…

The Academic Behavioural Confidence (ABC) scale has been shown to be valid and can be useful to teachers in understanding their students, enabling the design of more effective teaching sessions with large cohorts. However, some of the between-group differences have been smaller than expected, leading to the hypothesis that the ABC scale many not…