This study's purpose is to examine the existing school climate literature in an attempt to constitute its definition from a historical context and to create a valid and reliable student-reported school climate instrument. Five historically common school climate domains and five measurement tools were identified, combined, and previewed by the…

This study investigated the validity of four theoretically motivated traits of writing ability across English and Korean, based on elementary school students' responses to letter- and story-writing tasks. Their responses were scored analytically and analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis. The findings include the following. A model of writing…

This study examined whether measurement constructs behind reading-related tests for struggling adult readers are similar to what is known about measurement constructs for children. The sample included 371 adults reading between the third-and fifth-grade levels, including 127 men and 153 English speakers of other languages. Using measures of skills…

The purpose of this study is to determine the perceptions of New York State superintendents and board presidents in high-achieving and low-achieving school districts on the six superintendent leadership responsibilities identified by Waters and Marzano (2006) and their relationship to improving student achievement: (1) creating research-relevant…

Background: Conceptualizations of teachers' agency beliefs converge around domains of support and instruction. Aim: We investigated changes in student teachers' agency beliefs during a 1 year teacher education course, and related these to observed classroom quality and day-to-day experiences in partnership schools during the practicum. Samples:…

The great majority of questionnaires measuring non-observable constructs such as attitude towards CALL are often developed from a specific point of view and are seldom followed by psychometrical validation. Psychometrical properties of the questionnaire, such as construct validity and reliability, then remain unanswered too often, laying a heavy…

Full-time students engaged in part-time studies have been a subject of increasing academic attention. This study extends work in this area by examining: the extent to which full-time undergraduate students undertake part-time employment, the reasons for working whilst studying full-time and the extent to which students relate their part-time…

The psychometric properties of a German version of the Questions About Behavioral Function Scale (QABF) (Matson & Vollmer, 1995) were examined in a sample of 522 individuals with intellectual disabilities residing in large facilities participated. The factor structure was first examined by exploratory factor analysis, yielding a…

This study examined the reliability and validity evidence drawn from the scores of the Spanish version of the Achievement Goal Tendencies Questionnaire (AGTQ) using a sample of 2,022 (51.1% boys) Spanish students from grades 7 to 10. Confirmatory factor analysis replicated the correlated three-factor structure of the AGTQ in this sample: Learning…

The primary aim was to explore and compare the dimensionality of personal epistemology with respect to climate change across the contexts of Norwegian and Spanish students. A second aim was to examine relationships between topic-specific epistemic beliefs and the variables of gender, topic knowledge, and topic interest in the two contexts.…

This paper introduces five commonly used approaches to analyzing multiple-choice test data. They are classical test theory, factor analysis, cluster analysis, item response theory, and model analysis. Brief descriptions of the goals and algorithms of these approaches are provided, together with examples illustrating their applications in physics…

We sought to develop and psychometrically describe three new student engagement scales to measure college students' engagement with their faculty (student-faculty engagement: SFE), community-based activities (CBA), and transformational learning opportunities (TLO) using items selected from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), a widely…

Conscientiousness is often found to predict academic outcomes, but is defined differently by different models of personality. High school students (N = 291) completed a large number of Conscientiousness items from different models and the Big Five Inventory (BFI). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of the items uncovered eight facets:…

Positive teacher attitudes toward computers are widely recognized as a necessary condition for effective use of information technology in the classroom (Woodrow, 1992). To measure attitudes toward technology, it is important to have valid and reliable instruments. In this study, the authors used confirmatory factor analysis to verify construct…

This study investigates the effect of mode of administration of the Raven Standard Progressive Matrices test on distribution, accuracy, and meaning of raw scores. A random sample of high school students take counterbalanced paper-and-pencil and computer-based administrations of the test and answer a questionnaire surveying preferences for…