The structure of the revised Client Needs Assessment Instrument (CNAI) is examined. In 1978-79, the Texas Department of Human Resources (DHR) developed the CNAI to provide an index of applicants' and clients' capacity for self-care by measuring the respondents' levels of functioning in: (1) physical health; (2) daily living activities; (3) mental…

The study examined educationally relevant aspects of the home environments of 56 elementary school students with mild educational handicaps. Thirteen aspects of the home environment were examined for the extent to which differences existed among the three categories of handicapped students (educable mentally retarded, learning disabled, and…

Recent workplace literacy initiatives for limited-English-proficient (LEP) employees in Illinois have resulted in employer interest in the measurement of adult English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) achievement, particularly in the area of reading comprehension. Employers are requesting that evidence of a language minority employee's reading ability…

Several multivariate statistical methodologies have been proposed to ensure objective and quantitative evaluation of the multitrait-multimethod matrix. The paper examines the performance of confirmatory factor analysis and covariance component models. It is shown, both empirically and formally, that confirmatory factor analysis is not a reliable…

A study investigated second-grade urban students' attitudes toward reading and examined whether attitudes toward reading correlate with reading achievement and reading performance. Subjects, 42 male and 42 female students from 2 ethnically and racially diverse urban public elementary schools, were individually assessed on primer or preprimer…

Examined were antecedents and behavioral correlates of parental perceptions of efficacy, using data from a national survey of 3,000 parents and a study of 65 mother-infant dyads. Survey data were used to determine what factors are predictive of parental perceptions of efficacy. Dyadic data were used primarily to examine the relation between…

The purpose of the study was to investigate the construct validity of the Jewish Employment and Vocational Service (JEVS) work samples. The specific objectives were: (1) to investigate the factor structure of the JEVS work samples; (2) to determine which work samples were good measures of general ability; and (3) to identify the work samples that…

Factor analysis is the traditional method for studying the dimensionality of test data. However, under common conditions, the factor analysis of tetrachoric correlations does not recover the underlying structure of dichotomous data. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the factor analyses of tetrachoric correlations is unlikely to…

The purpose of this paper is to compare the precision of direct and indirect measures of writing assessment using the test information functions from a graded response Item Response Theory (IRT) model. Subjects were 192 sophomore English students from a parochial high school in Wisconsin. Both direct and indirect measures of writing ability were…

In order to evaluate time management practices among managers of large academic libraries, questionnaires were mailed to 189 library directors. A total of 158 surveys were returned for a response rate of 82%. Items used to collect data in the questionnaire were based on time management literature and were grouped into five categories: (1) a…

This study examines the general hypothesis that surveys can be used to elicit reliable and valid student ratings of the effectiveness of most aspects of the delivery of the academic programs in which they are enrolled, and reports data on test-retest reliability for upper division majors as well as on the reliability with which ratings…

Classroom researchers are frequently urged to provide evidence of the reliability of their data. In the case of observational data, three approaches to this have emerged: observer agreement, generalizability theory, and measurement error. Generalizability theory provides the most powerful approach given an adequate data collection design, but…

Data were collected for this study of the relationship between television watching and family life via a recording device (C-Box) consisting of a television set and a video camera. Designed for the study, this device was installed in 20 homes for one week to record the viewing area in front of the television set together with information on…

The effects of interactive television (ITV) learning on the attitudes and achievement of different types of learners were investigated using as subjects 97 students who were taking courses at remote sites through the University of Southern Maine ITV system. First, a Likert-type scale for measuring learner preferences was developed and validated.…