Response accuracy and response speed provide separate measures of performance. Psychometricians have tended to focus on accuracy with the goal of characterizing examinees on the basis of their ability to respond correctly to items from a given content domain. With the advent of computerized testing, response times can now be recorded unobtrusively…

Data reported in this paper were collected as part of a larger longitudinal study of the development of young Chicano or Mexican American children and their families. The measures completed by the children included the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities, a standardized instrument that measures general intellectual level. The first three…

This report describes the development of a rating scale and direct observation measure to monitor the treatment of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in the home or school setting. The study applied an accuracy-reliability paradigm to validate the newly created rating scale and observation measure. An incontrovertible index using a scripted…

In this paper, a mathematical programming approach is presented for the assembly of ability tests measuring multiple traits. The values of the variance functions of the estimators of the traits are minimized, while test specifications are met. The approach is based on Lagrangian relaxation techniques and provides good results for the two…

This paper recommends an evaluation procedure for gifted children which uses test results only to confirm the conclusions resulting from clinical evaluation that involves observation, discussion with the child, an interview with the parents, developmental milestones, and family history. It suggests that traditional test interpretation may lead to…

Psychology studies often have low statistical power. Sample size tables, as given by J. Cohen (1988), may be used to increase power, but they are based on Monte Carlo studies of relatively "tame" mathematical distributions, as compared to psychology data sets. In this study, Monte Carlo methods were used to investigate Type I and Type II…

The Parenting Alliance Inventory (PAI) was administered to 186 mothers and 75 fathers with a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds who had at least one child between 2 and 6 years of age. Subjects were recruited from child care facilities, pediatric practices, and public recreational facilities in central Virginia. Extrafamilial child caregivers…

The complexity and rapid expansion of the entire field of psychology make it appropriate to speak of "psychologies" when acknowledging the need for specialization of training and expertise. Nevertheless, unifying trends (UTs) exist in psychology, even though there can be no single set of theoretical principles to account for all empirical…

This article, written for psychologists, educators, and allied health professionals, is both a review of the "Handbook of Human Intelligence" Robert S. Sternberg, editor, and an essay in response to it. Following a note on the contributions made to the field of cognitive psychology by Sternberg and the Handbook, chapters of the book,…

An approach to simultaneous optimization of assignments of subjects to treatments followed by an end-of-mastery test is presented using the framework of Bayesian decision theory. Focus is on demonstrating how rules for the simultaneous optimization of sequences of decisions can be found. The main advantages of the simultaneous approach, compared…

Intended as a resource for individuals wishing to evaluate alcohol abuse education programs, this handbook, one of a series of seven, provides a collection of measuring devices that can improve the quality of such evaluations. Chapter 1 introduces the handbook's contents and outlines evaluation related issues specific to alcohol abuse education…

Simultaneous estimation of many parameters can often be improved, sometimes dramatically so, if it is reasonable to consider one or more subsets of parameters as exchangeable members of corresponding populations. While each observation may provide limited information about the parameters it is modeled directly in terms of, it also contributes…

The general ability factor (G), as enunciated by Charles Spearman in the model of cognitive functioning, has been the foundation of psychometric theory and test making practices for 80 years. Through these decades, some psychologists disagreed with this theory, especially Godfrey Thompson and E. L. Thorndike. Nevertheless, various aptitude tests…

Significant to a latent trait or item response theory analysis of a mental test is the determination of exactly what is being quantified. The following are practical problems to be considered in the formulation of a good theory: (1) deciding whether two tests measure the same trait or traits; (2) analyzing the relative contributions of a pair of…

This paper reviews the existing multidimensional item response theory (IRT) models and demonstrates how one of the models can be applied to estimation of abilities from a test measuring more than one dimension. The purposes of this paper were threefold. First, the fundamental concepts required when considering multidimensional models for the…