Selective sustained attention (SSA) is crucial for higher order cognition. Factors promoting SSA are described as exogenous or endogenous. However, there is little research specifying how these factors interact during development, due largely to the paucity of developmentally appropriate paradigms. We report findings from a novel paradigm designed…

We investigate the performance of three statistics, R [subscript 1], R [subscript 2] (Glas in "Psychometrika" 53:525-546, 1988), and M [subscript 2] (Maydeu-Olivares & Joe in "J. Am. Stat. Assoc." 100:1009-1020, 2005, "Psychometrika" 71:713-732, 2006) to assess the overall fit of a one-parameter logistic model…

Most dichotomous item response models share the assumption of latent monotonicity, which states that the probability of a positive response to an item is a nondecreasing function of a latent variable intended to be measured. Latent monotonicity cannot be evaluated directly, but it implies manifest monotonicity across a variety of observed scores,…

Head Start is a national program that aims to promote school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children through the provision of educational, health, nutritional, social, and other services to enrolled children and families. The program places special emphasis on helping preschoolers develop the reading, language,…

Student evaluations of teaching (SET) have been the principal instrument to elicit students' opinions in higher education institutions. Many decisions, including high-stake ones, are made based on SET scores reported by students. In this respect, reliability of SET scores is of considerable importance. This paper has an argument that there are…

A classroom assessment environment is a classroom context experienced by students as the teacher determines assessment purposes, develops assessment tasks, defines assessment criteria and standards, provides feedback, and monitors outcomes (Brookhart, 1997). It is usually a group experience varying from class to class dependent upon the teacher's…

A review of the nursing and health-related literature on spirituality revealed that no valid and reliable research tool exists in Arabic for measuring spiritual beliefs and practices for Arab Muslim population. This study translated the Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale (SIBS) into Arabic and examined the psychometric properties of the…

The psychometric properties of a new, brief measure, the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale-Second Edition (RCMAS-2) Short Form, were examined in a sample of 1,003 U.S. elementary and secondary students. The RCMAS-2 Short Form consists of the first 10 items of the RCMAS-2. The results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the…

Numerous researchers have suggested that there are multiple mathematical knowledge and skill areas needed by teachers in order for them to be effective teachers of mathematics: knowledge of the mathematics that are the goals of instruction, advanced mathematics beyond the instructional material, and mathematical knowledge that is specific to what…

This study presents a validation report of the Lecturer's Teaching Assessment Scale (LTAS) developed for the assessment of lecturer's teaching effectiveness in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. It also examined the factor structure of the LTAS, its construct validity, and internal consistency reliability coefficients. The study adopted…

Socioecological theory suggests that there are a range of influences that affect the physical activity levels of children, including parents' perceptions of the neighborhood. A questionnaire instrument to quantify parental neighborhood perceptions was developed for the Location of Children's Activity in Their Environment study as a potential…

This paper investigates the performance of holistic and analytic scoring rubrics in the context of EFL writing. Specifically, the paper compares EFL students' scores on a writing task using holistic and analytic scoring rubrics. The data for the study was collected from 30 participants attending an English undergraduate program in a Yemeni…

Studies of psychological misconceptions have often used tests with methodological shortcomings, unknown psychometric properties, and ad hoc methods for identifying misconceptions, creating problems for estimating frequencies of specific misconceptions. To address these problems, we developed a new test, the Test of Psychological Knowledge and…

The present study examined the psychometric equivalence of administering a computer-based version of the Gifted Rating Scale (GRS) compared with the traditional paper-and-pencil GRS-School Form (GRS-S). The GRS-S is a teacher-completed rating scale used in gifted assessment. The GRS-Electronic Form provides an alternative method of administering…

This research provides new insights into the measurement of students' authorial identity and its potential for minimising the incidence of unintentional plagiarism by providing evidence about the psychometric properties of the Student Authorship Questionnaire (SAQ). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (EFA and CFA) are employed to…