The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) is one of the most widely used measures in psychiatric outcome and clinical psychopharmacology research. To date, however, research on the psychometric properties of the expanded version of the BPRS (BPRS-E) has been limited. An exploratory factor analysis (n = 360) using maximum likelihood extraction with…

Using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), perceptions of global stress were assessed in 111women following breast cancer surgery and at 12 and 24 months later. This is the first study to factor analyze the PSS. The PSS data were factor analyzed each time using exploratory factor analysis with oblique direct quartimin rotation. Goodness-of-fit…

The CAGE is a commonly used alcohol screening instrument. Although considerable work has been done on the validity of CAGE scores, relatively little information is available on their reliability. Reliability induction and generalization studies were performed for the CAGE. Of the 259 studies available for analysis, only 19 (7.3%) contained…

Based on seminal work by Lord and Hambleton, Swaminathan, and Rogers, this article is an analytical, graphical, and conceptual reminder that item response theory (IRT) parameter invariance only holds for perfect model fit in multiple populations or across multiple conditions and is thus an ideal state. In practice, one attempts to quantify the…

Gickling's model of curriculum-based assessment (CBA) has been linked to problem identification and intervention development and is used in several school consultation approaches. This article uses Ellis's (2001) three levels of research criteria to examine the use of CBA in a school consultation model. Aside from the need for more psychometric…

This research employs a multi-disciplinary approach by developing a model that draws upon psychometric, cultural, and reflexive modernization perspectives of risk perception. Using data from a 1999 national telephone survey, we tested our model on three food risks ? pesticides, Salmonella, and fat. Results showed that perceptions of risks do vary…

This paper explores some of the implications of moving from a traditional discrepancy model of learning disability (LD) to the low achievement model of LD proposed by Siegel and Ladyman in the British Columbia Review of Special Education (2000). We apply two variations of each of the two models of LD definition?the existing discrepancy model and…

An important, sometimes controversial feature of all psychological phenomena is whether they are categorical or dimensional. A conceptual and psychometric framework is described for distinguishing whether the latent structure behind manifest categories (e.g., psychiatric diagnoses, attitude groups, or stages of development) is category-like or…

Although the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory-3 (SASSI-3; F. G. Miller & L. E. Lazowski, 1999) is widely used with college students (L. Myerholtz & H. Rosenberg, 1998), it is unclear whether the SASSI-3 is appropriate for use with this population. The authors investigated the SASSI-3's psychometric capabilities in a college student…

The study described in this article tested the psychometric properties of the Intergenerational Congruence in Immigrant Families--Parent Scale (ICIF-PS), an instrument developed to assess intergenerational conflict in immigrant families and evaluate interventions to ameliorate the conflict. ICIF-PS's psychometric properties were tested in a sample…

This study compared nonverbal numerical processing in 6-year-olds with that in nonhuman animals using a numerical bisection task. In the study, 16 children were trained on a delayed match-to-sample paradigm to match exemplars of two anchor numerosities. Children were then required to indicate whether a sample intermediate to the anchor values was…

In light of recent specific liberalizations in drug laws in some countries, I have investigated the potential of entheogens (i.e., psychoactive plants used as spiritual sacraments) as tools to facilitate existential intelligence. "Plant teachers" from the Americas such as ayahuasca, psilocybin mushrooms, and peyote, and the Indo-Aryan…

Many studies have investigated preservice teachers' motivations to teach. However, few studies have (a) used robust measurement methodologies to test the psychometric properties of instruments measuring motivations to teach, (b) attempted to measure changes over time in preservice teachers' motivations to teach, or (c) attempted to assess the…

We describe an integrated theory of individual differences that traces the behavioral development of life history from genes to brain to reproductive strategy. We provide evidence that a single common factor, the K-Factor, underpins a variety of life-history parameters, including an assortment of sexual, reproductive, parental, familial, and…

Five rating scales for screening and detection of Asperger's Disorder, three commercially available and two research instruments, are evaluated with reference to psychometric criteria outlined by Bracken in 1987 ("Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment," 4, 313). Reliability and validity data reported in examiner's manuals or published reports…