The widespread application of personal computers to educational and psychological testing has substantially increased the number of test administration methodologies available to testing programs. Many of these mediums are referred to by their acronyms, such as CAT, CBT, CCT, and LOFT. The similarities between the acronyms and the methods…

Variety may be the spice of life, but in terms of data sources, variety is more than a spice--it is one of the basic food groups. Alternative data sources, such as student interviews and walk-throughs, are essential for a well-balanced diet. Data from test scores alone, whether from norm-referenced or criterion-referenced tests, state, district,…

University league tables in their present form have been around for two decades. One of their objectives has been to help would-be university students (and their parents) make an informed choice of university and course. In the United Kingdom, historically, they have taken the form of a numerical hierarchy topped (predictably) by Oxford and…

2008 marks the fifth year of publication for the Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation (JMDE). The growth of JMDE, whether measured in terms of readership or in the evolution of ideas, reflects the increasing importance of evaluation, not as a separate process, but more as the development of an evaluative state of mind. Just in terms of…

Charter Theatre is a small professional theatre in Washington, DC. Its mission is to develop and produce new plays. Like other organizations, Charter Theatre wants to be accountable. Its members saw early the need for evaluation--a repeatable process to assure the quality of their work, and have infused their development process with evaluation.…

Egon Brunswik (1903-1955) first made an interesting distinction between perception and explicit reasoning, arguing that perception included quick estimates of an object's size, nearly always resulting in good approximations in uncertain environments, whereas explicit reasoning, while better at achieving exact estimates, could often fail by wide…

Curriculum-based measurement of mathematics (CBM-M) comprises a set of procedures and instrumentation to assess the level and trend of student achievement in early mathematics. The purpose of this article is to review the recent research and psychometric evidence for CBM-M. Although recent developments in CBM-M include procedures to assess early…

For the past 25 years, methodological advances have been made in missing data treatment. Most published work has focused on missing data in dependent variables under various conditions. The present study seeks to fill the void by comparing two approaches for handling missing data in categorical covariates in logistic regression: the…

Pathological Gambling Disorder (PGD) is internationally prevalent and contributes to significant disruption and impairment in a gambler's life. For accurate diagnosis and treatment planning, clinicians require standardized criteria as in commonly used DSM and ICD-10 taxonomies, which are conceptually clear, valid, and culturally appropriate. We…

The purpose of this article is to inform readers about the types of instruments available for assessing and improving mentoring in organizations. Extensive review of the psychological, business and medical literature was conducted to identify commercially published, practitioner-oriented instruments. All of the instruments that were…

In its most basic form, strategic planning is a process of anticipating change, identifying new opportunities, and executing strategy. The use of mixed methods, blending quantitative and qualitative analytical techniques and data, in the process of assembling a strategic plan can help to ensure a successful outcome. In this article, the author…

Language, literacy and numeracy are necessary for greater workforce participation, productivity and social inclusion. Being able to measure the level of proficiency in these skills, and any changes in the level of skills, is important for getting a sense of how well language, literacy and numeracy programs are working. Two measurement tools used…

Several current international comparative large-scale assessments of educational achievement (ICLSA) make use of "Rasch models", to address functions essential for valid cross-cultural comparisons. From a historical perspective, ICLSA and Georg Rasch's "models for measurement" emerged at about the same time, half a century ago. However, the…

This article reviews the development of community marriage initiatives and their relationship with family professionals, with particular emphasis on sociohistorical context. We describe five leading community marriage initiatives, discuss the state of the evaluation research, and propose new directions for this promising area of work.

A survey instrument was developed to measure community college faculty and administrator views on the faculty evaluation process. Responses were then compared based on demographic characteristics such as primary area of instruction, supervisory responsibility, years of experience, and gender. Open-ended survey questions asked respondents to…