This editorial addresses principles of risk assessment in child abuse cases by professionals in child protection work. It notes that the essence of risk assessment is predicting whether the child will be maltreated at some future point in time. It also introduces four articles concerning different aspects of the risk assessment process. (DB)

Reanalyzed data from 1983 prospective study of suicide in cohort of 4,800 psychiatric inpatients using logistic regression. Results were same as in previous study: too few of the subsequent suicides were identified and there were too many false positives to make procedure useful. Additional artificial logistic regression analyses helped but fell…

Provides tables of Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT) subtests and composite predicted-achievement standard scores based on Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III) Verbal and Performance intelligence quotients (IQs). Tables allow examiners to determine quickly ability-achievement discrepancies based on WISC-III…

An approach is presented that can predict internal consistency of cognitively complex assessments on two dimensions, those of adding tasks with similar or different solution strategies and adding test takers with different solution strategies. Data from the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress mathematics assessment are used to…

Explains a technique for measuring the ability of college basketball teams, enabling the researchers to predict the winners at least as well as sports experts. (SLD)

Presents a Rasch measurement technique to rate the difficulty of mountain climbs. (SLD)

Discusses the squared cross-validity coefficient as a measure of the predictive validity of a sample linear prediction equation. Presents sample-size tables that should result in very small discrepancies between the squared multiple correlation and the squared cross-validity correction, thus facilitating the selection of sample size for predictive…

Using expectancy theory, analysis of data from 113 subjects found that perceptions of procedural justice and the performance appraisal system in organizations interact with organizational citizenship behavior. Those who believe that organizaitonal citizenship behaviors are worthwhile, influenced by direct and indirect rewards, will do more of…

Data from 559 undergraduates provided modest evidence that Holland's taxonomy of work environments moderated the relationship between personality and performance. The traits of agreeableness and conscientiousness were better predictors of performance in certain environments. The important relationship between personality and performance may be…

Two experiments examined whether young children's difficulty with behavioral predictions when appearance was misleading would extend to more general domains. Found that while both 3- and 5- year-olds understood that persons dressing up in costume would retain their real identities, 3-year-olds were unable to predict that the character's biological…

Objective:: For nearly 25 years researchers have suggested that better taxonomic systems conceptualizing and reliably differentiating among different dimensions of maltreatment are required. This study examines the utility of three different characterizations of one dimension of maltreatment, chronicity, to predict child behavioral and emotional…

Long-term follow-up information on children who have participated in early childhood special education (ECSE) has seldom been available. In the present study, the cognitive and academic performance of 171 thirteen-year-old graduates of 2 ECSE curricula is examined. Although preschool cognitive measures continued to predict later performance…

Realizing that the assessment of dangerousness with a yes/no format as a poor form of violent risk assessment has been the most important lesson learned about violence in the last 20 years. Further examining (a) what outcome and (b) how the indicators of the outcome should be measured has resulted in better violent risk assessment. The most…

Comparative theory testing is a useful method for assessing the value of a new theoretical account such as the memory bias account of optimistic time predictions. However, such comparisons can be misleading when they do not carefully consider the domain limitations of the respective theories. M. M. Roy, N. J. S. Christenfeld, and C. R. M. McKenzie…

People chronically underestimate how long tasks will take. In their original article, the present authors (M. M. Roy, N. J. S. Christenfeld, & C. R. M. McKenzie) suggested a simple, broadly applicable explanation: Biased predictions result from biased memories. In their comment article, D. Griffin and R. Buehler suggested that in many domains in…