Although the Beck Depression Inventory and Beck Anxiety Inventory are two of the most widely used instruments for assessing depressive and anxious symptoms in both clinical and nonclinical populations, their cross-cultural reliability and validity have yet to be fully established. In this study, 2,703 Caucasian American and 1,110 Latino college…

Background: Increasing emphasis on family-centred approaches to services and supports for families of children with disabilities has surfaced the issue of accountability for family outcomes. We present a review of literature about the impacts of children with disabilities on families as a backdrop to proposing family quality of life as a concept…

Although instruments that estimate the prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) are available, few include potential predictors of violent behaviors such as beliefs and attitudes. The main purpose of this study was to develop a measure of attitudes toward various forms of IPV. The secondary purpose was to examine Mexican American and…

Objective: The Level of Stability Index for Children (LSIC) is a multidimensional, self-report, rapid assessment instrument for assessing emotional and behavioral tendencies children may exhibit toward self or others. The LSIC describes children's propensity toward depression, suicidal ideation, anger, and aggression. Method: Self-report survey…

The structural validity of the Ohio Ninth Grade Proficiency Test was investigated with the test scores of 713 eighth graders who had their first opportunity to take the test in March 1999 in a large urban school district in Ohio. The study examined a hypothetical structure of the test to determine its fit to the data. Confirmatory factor analysis…

The factor structure of the Brief Symptom Inventory--18 (BSI-18; L. R. Derogatis, 2000) was investigated in a sample of adult survivors of childhood cancer enrolled in the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study (CCSS; N = 8,945). An exploratory factor analysis with a randomly chosen subsample supported a 3-factor structure closely corresponding to the 3…

There has been a recent push to extend the construct of psychopathy into adolescence, primarily as a result of the impressive reliability, validity, and utility of this construct in samples of adults. The value of this work rests, however, on creating an equally reliable and valid assessment tool for adolescents. One promising measure is the…

The Kessler 10 Psychological Distress Scale (K10) is a brief 10-item questionnaire designed to measure the level of distress and severity associated with psychological symptoms in population surveys. It is being used widely, including in the World Health Organization World Mental Health Survey, and as a clinical outcome measure, although little…

Academic self-concept and academic interest are crucial concepts for understanding students' academic achievement. Yet, few questionnaires currently exist that have been used and validated in more than one country. This study aimed at assessing these concepts using an academic self-concept questionnaire (Marsh, 1990) and an academic interest…

Background: This study seeks to identify the cornerstones of personal bests (PBs) in the educational setting. Aims: The study proposes a multidimensional PB model in which students are most likely to attain PBs on tasks/goals that are (1) specific, (2) challenging, (3) competitively self-referenced, and (4) self-improvement based. Sample: The…

This study examined the relationship of a machine-scorable, constrained free-response computer science item that required the student to debug a faulty program to two other types of items: multiple-choice and free-response requiring production of a computer program. The free-response items were from the College Board's Advanced Placement Computer…

This study investigated the dimensionality of mathematics subscale scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress for the assessment's Technical Review Panel, specifically for the data from the 1990 and 1992 main assessment in relation to students' instructional and noninstructional background variables. Discriminant analysis was…

The Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC) scales have been used both to evaluate program effects and to assign subjects to treatment modalities. This study explored the construct validity of scores from the MHLC scales when the measure is used with adults who solicit intervention to promote their own health. The MHLC measures health…

A recent issue of importance in the vast literature on well-being and age concerns the factorial invariance of the construct across age groups. Current wisdom suggests that while differences in loadings exist among age groups, the construction of summary measures introduces little bias. To investigate age and ethnic variation in the meaning of…

This project attempts to refine the Zones of Indifference Instrument, (included in appendix) that measures zones of indifference of teachers to typical directives issued by administrators. As a result of the original validation study, a 78-item, two-factor instrument was developed. These two factors explained 52 percent of the variance. The…