What distinguishes students' sense-making of the past from historians' thinking is that historians know how to determine the validity of competing truth claims, a rather complex intellectual skill that requires a sophisticated set of heuristics and strategies. One way to help students learn how to determine the validity of competing truth claims…

We explored the relationships between "autistic" traits as measured by the AQ (Autism-Spectrum Quotient; Baron-Cohen et al., J. Autism Develop. Disord. (2001b) 31 5) and various personality traits or cognitive ability, which usually coincide with autistic symptoms, for general populations. Results showed the AQ was associated with…

In this study, predictive classification accuracy was used to select those tasks from a kindergarten screening battery that best identified children who, three years later, were classified as educable mentally handicapped or as having a specific learning disability. A subset of measures enabled correct classification of 91% of the children in…

Objective: The pediatric version of the Short Form of the Quality of Life Enjoyment and Satisfaction Questionnaire (PQ-LES-Q) was developed to aid in the assessment of an important aspect of life experience in children and adolescents. Method: The reliability and validity of the PQ-LES-Q was tested using data from a sample of 376 outpatient…

The purpose of this study was to train a paraprofessional to implement the Direct Instruction (DI) "Spelling Mastery" (Dixon, Engelmann, & Bauer, 1990a, 1990b) program and to investigate the effectiveness of the instruction delivered by the paraprofessional for students with learning disabilities. We investigated (a) the extent to…

This study examined the multiple true-false (MTF) test format in second language testing by comparing multiple-choice (MCQ) and multiple true-false (MTF) test formats in two language areas of general English: vocabulary and reading. Two counter-balanced experimental designs--one for each language area--were examined in terms of the number of MCQ…

Content analysis scales apply rigorous measurement to verbal communications and make possible the quantification of text in counseling research. The limitations of the Origin and Pawn Scales (M. T. Westbrook & L. L. Viney, 1980), the Positive Affect Scale (M. T. Westbrook, 1976), the Content Analysis Scales of Psychosocial Maturity (CASPM; L.…

This paper explores alternative approaches for facilitating efficient, evidence-centered item development for a new type of verbal reasoning item developed for use on the GRE® General Test. Results obtained in two separate studies are reported. The first study documented the development and validation of a fully automated approach for locating the…

The emergence of numerous learning style models over the past 25 years has brought increasing attention to the idea that students learn in diverse ways and that one approach to teaching does not work for every student or even most students. We have reviewed five learning style instruments (the Kolb Learning Style Indicator, the Gregorc Style…

The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the opinions of parents of pre-school children about children's programmes on TV. The study had two phases: In the first step "The Evaluation Scale for Children's Programmes" was translated into Turkish, the reliability and validity of the scale was tested through analyzing of the data…

In this study, we examined the characteristics of reading disability (RD) in the seventh grade of the Greek educational system and the corresponding diagnostic practice. We presented a clinically administered assessment battery, composed of typically employed tasks, and a fully automated, computer-based assessment battery that evaluates some of…

The relationships between ratings on the Idaho Alternate Assessment (IAA) for 116 students with significant disabilities and corresponding ratings for the same students on two norm-referenced teacher rating scales were examined to gain evidence about the validity of resulting IAA scores. To contextualize these findings, another group of 54…

In this article, the authors provide their critique on a set of papers that investigated Mathematics Knowledge for Teachers (MKT) assessment and the underlying theory and characteristics of the validity enterprise. Three types of assumptions and inferences--elemental, structural, and ecological--are discussed in these papers. These assumptions…

In this issue of Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and Perspectives, Schilling et al. are explicit about the centrality of assessment design and development and psychometric analysis in validation. Schilling and colleagues, Kane (2004, 2006), other contemporary validity theorists and practitioners, and their predecessors typically discuss…

The Communities That Care Youth Survey measures risk and protective factors shown in prior studies to predict adolescent problem behaviors such as drug use, delinquency, and violence. This paper describes the development and validation of cut points for the risk and protective factor scales in the Communities That Care Youth Survey that…