Item factor analysis has a rich tradition in both the structural equation modeling and item response theory frameworks. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate a novel combination of various Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) estimation routines to estimate parameters of a wide variety of confirmatory item factor analysis models. Further, I show…

Nested logit item response models for multiple-choice data are presented. Relative to previous models, the new models are suggested to provide a better approximation to multiple-choice items where the application of a solution strategy precedes consideration of response options. In practice, the models also accommodate collapsibility across all…

Research on assessment in medical education has strongly focused on individual measurement instruments and their psychometric quality. Without detracting from the value of this research, such an approach is not sufficient to high quality assessment of competence as a whole. A programmatic approach is advocated which presupposes criteria for…

Low scores across a battery of tests are common in healthy people and vary by demographic characteristics. The purpose of the present article was to present the base rates of low scores for the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, fourth edition (WISC-IV; D. Wechsler, 2003). Participants included 2,200 children and adolescents between 6 and…

The social accuracy model of interpersonal perception (SAM) is a componential model that estimates perceiver and target effects of different components of accuracy across traits simultaneously. For instance, Jane may be generally accurate in her perceptions of others and thus high in "perceptive accuracy"--the extent to which a particular…

There is general agreement in the field of school psychology that revised versions of tests should be adopted in a timely manner, and that to do otherwise is poor practice. This would seem to be in accord with the intent, if not the explicit wording, of ethical and professional guidelines. But does this mean that practitioners should always, and…

Background: Social desirability has been construed as either inaccurately attributing positive characteristics to oneself (self-deception), or inaccurately denying that one possesses undesirable characteristics to others (other-deception or impression management). These conceptualisations of social desirability have not been considered in relation…

The psychometric properties of measures of self-efficacy for the six themes of Holland's theory were examined using item response theory. Item and scale quality were compared across levels of the trait continuum; all the scales were highly reliable but differentiated better at some levels of the continuum than others. Applications for adaptive…

Although effective in treating a range of childhood psychiatric conditions, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) have been implicated in the induction of an "activation syndrome" (characterized by symptoms of irritability, restlessness, emotional labiality, etc.) that may represent an intermediary state change that fosters…

In this dissertation, we report on results of an in-depth observational study to understand the temporal dimension of communication in the workplace. By employing the "shadowing" method for in situ to-the-second data gathering of information workers' behaviors, we gained a detailed snapshot of informants' workdays, "warts and all." Our…

The authors report an evaluation of the psychometric properties of a Chinese version of the Volunteer Functions Inventory on a sample of university student volunteers. Reliabilities were high for four out of the six scales of the Inventory (Values, Career, Social, and Understanding) in terms of internal consistency. Items in these four scales also…

The Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans-II is one of the most frequently used measures of acculturation, despite lack of validation. This study analyzed the structure of the Marginality Scale of the Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans-II using data from a diverse Latino sample of residents. Confirmatory factor analysis of…

The Supports Intensity Scale (SIS) was translated into French. The French version was then validated using a sample of 245 persons with intellectual disabilities between the ages of 16 and 75 years. The internal consistency was excellent (0.98). Correlations with age and levels of intellectual disabilities were evidence of good construct validity.…

This article has three goals. The first goal is to clarify the role that the consequences of test score use play in validity judgments by reviewing the role that modern writers on validity have ascribed for consequences in supporting validity judgments. The second goal is to summarize current views on who is responsible for collecting evidence of…

L. Wilkinson and the Task Force on Statistical Inference (1999) recommended reporting confidence intervals for measures of effect sizes. If the sample size is too small, the confidence interval may be too wide to provide meaningful information. Recently, K. Kelley and J. R. Rausch (2006) used an iterative approach to computer-generate tables of…