An instrument was developed to assess the extent to which a supervisor might use a given focus or use a certain style with a counseling trainee. The development of the instrument began with a brainstormed list of items that would represent elements of the discrimination model for supervision proposed by J. M. Bernard (1979). These elements…

The analysis of racial differences has been a popular undertaking for social scientists, perhaps because it seems to be easy to do and it yields interesting differences. This study raises the possibility that the frequent finding of higher self-esteem scores among blacks compared with whites may be attributable, at least in part, to black-white…

Staff evaluation is a time-consuming and unpopular task but one of the most important responsibilities of a school principal. In the evaluation of school guidance counselors, Georgia's DeKalb County School System has developed an instrument for collecting information from assistant principals, head counselors, teachers, and students. By using the…

Research showing psychodynamic child therapy to be less effective than other forms of child treatment have used outcome measures focusing on symptomatic and behavioral change rather than on psychodynamic processes. A child therapy assessment procedure than measures the psychological functioning of the child in a psychodynamically meaningful way is…

The final report describes the accomplishments of an 18-month study designed to adapt and standardize the 7th Edition of the Stanford Achievement Test with a national, randomly drawn sample of hearing-impaired students. The following objectives were accomplished: (1) test material and special procedures were developed and disseminated; (2) the…

A study examined the feasibility of using the Comprehensive Nursing Achievement Test as a predictor of nursing students' eventual success on the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX-RN). The predictive validity of other factors, such as age, college entrance test scores, and grades in second-year nursing courses, was also examined.…

A study was designed to investigate the validity and reliability of the adult Career Concerns Inventory, which assesses career concerns of adults of any age and occupation. Subjects, 4 male and 165 female students (ages 23 to 62) enrolled in the graduate nursing program at a southern university, were administered the adult Career Concerns…

Based on a review of the literature, this paper examines criticisms leveled against the communication audit developed by the International Communication Association (ICA) and then offers a modified version of the audit designed to meet those criticisms. Following a brief introduction, the first section of the paper reviews criticisms of the audit,…

Evidence suggests that individual difference measures of personality are limited in their ability to predict cross-situational behavior. This limitation has applied to measures of communication-bound anxiety that have generally been developed as unidimensional instruments. A study explored whether a measurement approach based on individual and…

There is no one structural model that defines the construct functional literacy. However, acceptable construct definitions in the literature cumulatively form some beginnings for a nomological network that relates functional literacy to the level of skills deemed necessary for survival in society. In the study, two different validation…

A study was conducted to determine whether counting correct word sequences is a valid measure of written expression for use in a formative evaluation system for elementary students. A correct word sequence was defined as two adjacent, correctly spelled words that were acceptable within the context of the phrase to a native speaker of the English…

Holistic evaluation, defined as the grading of an entire piece of writing without tallying or correcting specific errors, is discussed as preferable to discrete point testing or objective measures in assessing writing proficiency of English as a second language (ESL) students. The assessment process, in which the papers are evaluated as excellent,…

To find out what study skills were used by successful students at an urban commuter school whose primary degree program is business, the College Reading and Study Skills (CRSS) inventory was validated on 150 students. First the CRSS inventory was evaluated and revised slightly. The language of the statements was made positive and jargon free. The…

This paper discusses some means by which one might answer the question of "What makes problem solving hard?" In order to facilitate the investigations required to answer this question, a model of problem solving is needed. From some simulated solutions to a physics problem, several problem solving processes used by students are…

Since Upshur's (1969) original paper describing a picture-description test of oral communication ability, four empirical studies have been completed in which variants of the tests have been used. From these studies considerable new information on the tests' reliability and validity has become available. Indications are that the reliability is…