In preparation for online administration of the ACT® test, ACT conducted studies to examine the comparability of scores between online and paper administrations, including a timing study in fall 2013, a mode comparability study in spring 2014, and a second mode comparability study in spring 2015. This report presents major findings from these…

The purpose of this study was to identify how parents' use of language and literacy strategies during an adapted shared book reading activity relate to social, behavioral, and cognitive skills for their children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Participants were 111 young children (ages 4-7 years) with ASD and their mothers. A factor analysis…

A multiple testing method for examining factorial invariance for latent constructs evaluated by multiple indicators in distinct populations is outlined. The procedure is based on the false discovery rate concept and multiple individual restriction tests and resolves general limitations of a popular factorial invariance testing approach. The…

This research explores the competencies that financial aid officers need to be successful in their jobs. A survey of 30 competencies was distributed to 508 financial aid officers in the Western United States. Respondents were asked to rate 30 job competencies for their relative importance and frequency of use. Using exploratory factor analysis,…

This study examined the narrative discourse production and executive function (EF) abilities of 46 neuro-typical adults (18-98 years old). Two questions were addressed: Is the analysis of narrative structure sensitive to changes associated with aging? & What is the relationship between measures of narrative structure and EF? Narratives were…

The acceptance and inclusion of persons with intellectual disability can vary across cultures, and understanding attitudes can provide insight into such variation. To our knowledge, no previous study has explored attitudes toward people with intellectual disability among Pakistani community members and disability service providers. We administered…

Christopher Peterson received the Circle of Courage Award and made the following address in a symposium on "The Strength-Based Revolution" at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan (Peterson & Brendtro, 2008). Dr. Peterson shared personal reflections on the strengths movement, which is transforming youth development. His…

Many researchers recognize that factor analysis can be conducted on both correlation matrices and variance-covariance matrices. Although most researchers extract factors from non-distribution free or parametric methods, researchers can also extract factors from distribution free or non-parametric methods. The nature of the data dictates the method…

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) is a powerful and commonly-used tool for investigating the underlying variable structure of a psychometric instrument. However, there is much controversy in the social sciences with regard to the techniques used in EFA (Ford, MacCallum, & Tait, 1986; Henson & Roberts, 2006) and the reliability of the…

Previous studies have rarely examined the impact of outliers on the decisions about the number of factors to extract in an exploratory factor analysis. The few studies that have investigated this issue have arrived at contradictory conclusions regarding whether outliers inflated or deflated the number of factors extracted. By systematically…

The fit index root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) is extremely popular in structural equation modeling. However, its behavior under different scenarios remains poorly understood. The present study generates continuous curves where possible to capture the full relationship between RMSEA and various "incidental parameters," such as…

Problem Statement: In order to provide equal educational opportunities for students, teachers should encourage their students to have an effective voice concerning social justice. Studies reveal that teachers face trouble when transferring from the concept of social justice as theory to social justice as practice. A scale which will be developed…

Professional Development Engagement (PDE) refers to the level of undergraduate engagement in professional development. Professional Development (PD) involves activities designed to help students prepare for a successful college-to-work transition. This study tested a new 12-item measure of PDE for a complete-data sample of 246 undergraduate…

The purpose of this study is to validate the widely adopted Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) for the East Asian context. The researchers seek to find out whether TSES holds validity and reliability and is appropriate for use to measure teacher efficacy in China, Korea, and Japan. 489 teachers from the three countries participated in the…

One of the cause's célèbre in the field of education has been teacher attrition; Physical education (PE) is no different. Some PE teachers are leaving the profession because they encounter stress and dissatisfaction in their profession. The purpose of this study is to determine the aspects that keep PE teachers happy and remaining in the…