Acquiescence response bias is the tendency to agree to questionnaires irrespective of item content or direction, and is problematic for both researchers and clinicians. Further research is warranted to clarify factors relating to the confounding influence of acquiescence. Building on previous research that investigated the interaction between…

Student growth percentiles (SGPs, Betebenner, 2009) are used to locate a student's current score in a conditional distribution based on the student's past scores. Currently, following Betebenner (2009), quantile regression (QR) is most often used operationally to estimate the SGPs. Alternatively, multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) may…

This research investigates the paradox of creativity in autism. That is, whether people with subclinical autistic traits have cognitive styles conducive to creativity or whether they are disadvantaged by the implied cognitive and behavioural rigidity of the autism phenotype. The relationship between divergent thinking (a cognitive component of…

This paper examines students' performance in Non-verbal Intelligence tests relative academic achievement of some selected secondary school students. Two hypotheses were formulated with a view to generating data for the ease of analyses. Two non-verbal intelligent tests viz: Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) and AH[subscript 4] Part II…

Internists are required to perform a number of procedures that require mastery of technical and non-technical skills, however, formal assessment of these skills is often lacking. The purpose of this study was to develop, implement, and gather validity evidence for a procedural skills objective structured clinical examination (PS-OSCE) for internal…

The current study examined the incremental validity of the clinical clusters from the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities (WJ-III COG) for predicting scores on the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement (WJ-III ACH). All participants were children and adolescents (N = 4,722) drawn from the nationally representative WJ-III…

Despite many previous studies on reading fluency (measured by a maze task) as a screening measure, our understanding is limited about the utility of silent reading fluency in predicting later reading comprehension and contextual influences (e.g., schools and districts) on reading comprehension achievement. In the present study we examined: (1) How…

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess and compare the readability of type 2 diabetes online patient education materials from academic institutions in the northeast USA and the American Diabetes Association. Many US residents utilise the Internet to obtain health information. Studies have shown that online patient education materials…

There is a large body of research on the effectiveness of rater training methods in the industrial and organizational psychology literature. Less has been reported in the measurement literature on large-scale writing assessments. This study compared the effectiveness of two widely used rater training methods--self-paced and collaborative…

Michael Kane writes in this article that he is in more or less complete agreement with Professor Koretz's characterization of the problem outlined in the paper published in this issue of "Measurement." Kane agrees that current testing practices are not adequate for test-based accountability (TBA) systems, but he writes that he is far…

Rankings are a powerful force in higher education, swaying the enrollment decisions of prospective students and affecting the opinions of parents, board members, and policymakers. In the words of one provost, "The rankings matter to our university because they matter to people who matter to us." Rankings are also a business--one that is…

The effective evaluation of correctional programs is critically important. However, research in corrections rarely allows for the randomization of offenders to conditions of the study. This limitation compromises internal validity, and thus, causal conclusions can rarely be drawn. Increasingly, researchers are employing propensity score matching…

This paper presents the Latent Class Level-PCM as a method for identifying and interpreting latent classes of respondents according to empirically estimated performance levels. The model, which combines elements from latent class models and reparameterized partial credit models for polytomous data, can simultaneously (a) identify empirical…

Requiring a failing student to repeat a grade is, of course, not a novel idea. The theory behind test-based promotion policies is that students who fail to demonstrate a sufficient understanding of their current grade's curriculum lack the prerequisite proficiency to fully engage in the following grade. This view recognizes the cumulative nature…

Student Growth Percentiles (SGP, Betebenner, 2009) are used to locate a student's current score in a conditional distribution based on the student's past scores. Currently, following Betebenner (2009), quantile regression is most often used operationally to estimate the SGPs. Alternatively, multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) may also be…