Examined psychometric properties of Adolescent Risk-Taking Questionnaire, using 11- to 18-year-olds. Found that the four-factor risk structure was substantiated via confirmatory factor analysis. One week test-retest and internal consistency indices were sound. Older adolescents and boys perceived less risk and reported more risky behaviors than…

A study of 27 employees of an agency that provides services to persons with developmental disabilities investigated using the six-item Guttman scale, based on the Levels of Use framework, for monitoring the adoption and implementation of person-centered planning and other supports-oriented programs. High scores indicated likelihood of…

Investigates the reliability and validity of the Bentley Measures of Musical Abilities (BMMA) for predicting musical achievement of students entering the Conservatory Alberto Ginastera (Argentina) by measuring the students improvement over the first four-month term. Encourages the use of the BMMA as a means to evaluating the entering students…

Examined the predictive validity of urban first-graders' self-reports of depressed mood and feelings with respect to later psychopathology and adaptive functioning. Found that subjects' self-reports of depressed mood predicted later academic functioning, the need for and use of mental health services, suicidal ideation, and major depressive…

This article discusses potential benefits and detriments of high-stakes assessment on students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). It suggests these tests are unlikely to be useful for students with EBD because they differ dramatically from validated assessment procedures for students with disabilities. These students may experience…

Despite multiple and persuasive arguments against the validity of doing so, many basic writers continue to be identified by what Brian V. Street calls the "autonomous model of literacy," a model that research tells us is as artificial and inappropriate as it is ubiquitous. This article describes a curricular response to the political,…

To understand the role of early intervention (EI) practitioner confidence in the use and application of assistive technology (AT), a 24-item Assistive Technology Confidence Scale (ATCS) was developed and distributed to EI personnel. This article reports on the development and psychometric properties of the ATCS and the relation between scores on…

The evidence-based practice movement in the early childhood field has stimulated efforts to synthesize and disseminate research findings related to direct services, such as child interventions and classroom teaching practices. This article describes the need to use an evidence-based process to make decisions about indirect services, specifically…

Each January since 1997, "Education Week," the K-12 industry's newspaper of record, has issued its "Quality Counts" report, ranking states by, among other things, the "equity" of their school finances. On the other hand, every fall since 2001, the "Education Trust," a national organization devoted to closing the achievement gap in public schools,…

Theorem acquisition and deductive proof have always been core elements in the study and teaching of Euclidean geometry. The introduction of dynamic geometry environments, DGE (e.g., Cabri-Geometre, Geometer's Sketchpad), into classrooms in the past decade has posed a challenge to this praxis. Students can experiment through different dragging…

This article describes standardized instruments designed to measure physical and emotional health outcomes among children for a statewide implementation of community- and school-based family resource centers. It includes descriptive and psychometric information, strengths and weaknesses of two measures of physical well-being, and four measures of…

Across a variety of disciplines and areas of inquiry, reliable and valid measures are a cornerstone of quality research. This is the case because to have confidence in the findings of our studies, we must first have confidence in the quality of our measures. This article briefly reviews the literature on scale development and provides an empirical…

D.V. Cicchetti, A.S. Kaufman, and S.S. Sparrow (this issue) examine various technical issues related to six studies of perinatal PCB exposure and neurodevelopment and one study of adult PCB exposure and motor function. They raise questions about possible imperfections of the studies, but many of their assertions are unsupported or frankly…

The early childhood educational field has garnered attention with initiatives to foster skill acquisition in young children prior to kindergarten entry. These initiatives, in conjunction with the rigorous demands of curricular reform and a burgeoning accountability movement, invoke questions regarding the adequacy of the instruments used to assess…

Response to intervention (RTI) must be combined with comprehensive cognitive assessment to identify children with learning disabilities. This article presents the Cognitive Hypothesis Testing (CHT) model for integrating RTI and comprehensive evaluation practices in the identification of children with reading disabilities. The CHT model utilizes a…