The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of behavioral risk and protective factors among at-risk preschoolers. Parent-reported data ( N = 2,550) from the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA) indicated that Head Start preschoolers had significantly more behavior concerns and fewer protective factors than would be expected based…

The objectives of this study were twofold: (a) based on Bandura's theoretical framework, develop a four scale instrument to assess specifically general educators' teaching efficacy beliefs (TEB) concerning students with learning disabilities (Teacher Efficacy for the Inclusion of Students with Learning Disabilities Scale, TEISLDS), and (b) employ…

Researchers acknowledge a strong association between the frequency and duration of environmental reward and affective mood states, particularly in relation to the etiology, assessment, and treatment of depression. Given behavioral theories that outline environmental reward as a strong mediator of affect and the unavailability of an efficient,…

Buss and Perry (1992) developed the Aggression Questionnaire (AQ) to assess aggressiveness as a personality trait in high school and college samples. The AQ has been used by researchers in United States, Italy, Germany, Netherland, Japan, Canada, and Greece. The present study is reported on an Arabic adapted version of the AQ among a sample of 510…

Randomized response (RR) is a well-known method for measuring sensitive behavior. Yet this method is not often applied because: (i) of its lower efficiency and the resulting need for larger sample sizes which make applications of RR costly; (ii) despite its privacy-protection mechanism the RR design may not be followed by every respondent; and…

Purpose: This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Dyadic Relationship Scale (DRS), which measures negative and positive dyadic interactions from the perspective of both the patient and the family caregiver. An important aspect of evaluating the DRS was that it be statistically sound and meaningful for both members of the dyad.…

Background: This study is the first to evaluate the "Social Communication Questionnaire" (SCQ) and the "Developmental Behaviour Checklist-Autism Screening Algorithm" (DBC-ASA) in the same sample of school-aged children with intellectual disability (ID) with and without Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDDs). Method: Parents of 49 children (36…

This study investigated the factor structure of the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS). Principal components analysis (PCA) and principal axis factor analysis (PAF) evaluated archival data from children presenting to a university clinic with suspected autism spectrum disorders (ASDs; N = 164). PCA did not replicate components identified by…

The Early Development Index (EDI) is a teacher-completed checklist, intended to be a population-level tool to measure children's readiness for school and to alert communities to potential developmental problems in children. In response to the increasing popularity of the EDI, this paper provides a critical and timely evaluation and identifies the…

This article describes a model for response times that is proposed as a supplement to the usual factor-analytic model for responses to graded or more continuous typical-response items. The use of the proposed model together with the factor model provides additional information about the respondent and can potentially increase the accuracy of the…

This article describes the literature-based, testable, formative Patient-Centered Culturally Sensitive Health Care Model that explains the associations between patient-centered culturally sensitive health care, health-promoting treatment behaviors, and health outcomes and statuses. An intervention program based on the model and its foundational…

Standard item response theory (IRT) models posit latent variables to account for regularities in students' performance on test items. They can accommodate learning only if the expected changes in performance are smooth, and, in an appropriate metric, uniform over items. Wilson's "Saltus" model extends the ideas of IRT to development that…

This study investigated the intrajudge consistency of Angoff-based item performance estimates. The examination used was a certification examination in an emergency medicine specialty. Ten expert panelists rated the same 24 items twice during an operational standard setting study. Results indicate that the panelists were highly consistent, in terms…

Binary or graded disagree-agree responses to attitude items are often collected for the purpose of attitude measurement. Although such data are sometimes analyzed with cumulative measurement models, recent investigations suggest that unfolding models are more appropriate (J. S. Roberts, 1995; W. H. Van Schuur and H. A. L. Kiers, 1994). Advances in…

Test theory encompasses models and methods for drawing inferences about what students know and can do, cast in a framework of ideas from measurement, education, and psychology. The emerging paradigm of cognitive psychology prompts new considerations about collecting and interpreting evidence, suggesting alternative models for the nature,…