The Strong Interest Inventory (SII) is the most widely used instrument of its type in existence. The inventory is individually administered and can be used with high school students, college students, and adults. It is typically used in vocational counseling. The new 1994 version resembles the original published in 1927 both in the construction of…

This report documents the construct validity and reliability of the Professional Development Inventory (PDI), an assessment center sponsored by the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP). The assessment center provides a means for assessing participants in situations simulating those confronted by principals on the job. The…

The question of reliability in the intellectual assessment of young children is cause for concern among developmental psychologists and diagnosticians. The issue of reliability is confounded by normal variability in skills during early childhood, by the problem of consistency across time of age-appropriate assessment measures, and by the selection…

The purposes of this study were to develop an instrument to measure students' attitude toward statistics (STATS), and to define the underlying dimensions that comprise the STATS. The instrument consists of 24 items. The sample included 79 male and 97 female students from the statistics classes at the College of Education and the College of…

To address the need for writing assessment tools, two analytic measures for evaluating managerial writing were used: the Analysis of Argument Measure based on Toulmin's (1958) elements of an argument, and the Persuasive Adaptiveness Measure, which draws on the Delia, Kline, and Burleson (1979) ranking system for scoring the degree of social…

The methodology of five national surveys designed to estimate the scale and scope of training was analyzed to identify the reasons underlying the variability and unreliability of estimates of education and training. The five surveys were as follows: May Triennial Adult Education Supplement to the Current Population Survey, National Longitudinal…

Special problems confront the researcher measuring the attitudes of young children who cannot readily make cognitive judgments associated with conventional psychometric scales, such as Likert scales. One measurement strategy, called the method of paired comparisons, can overcome these difficulties. The method is explained in this paper. A small…

Conflict resolutions that do not accord with parents' positions display children's power to influence both the conduct of conflict and the principles families use in conflict resolution. Forty two-parent, two-child families were observed in their homes during three 90-minute sessions in which the children and parents were in separate areas of the…

Teacher-principal relations play an important role in creating a positive school climate. This paper describes findings of a study that sought to: (1) determine the reliability of the Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire--Rutgers Secondary (OCDQ-RS) in a South African context, and (2) measure the openness of the organizational climates…

Early intervention has shifted in focus to family centered assessment and treatment. The Comprehensive Evaluation of Family Functioning was developed to meet the need for accurate family assessment, but limited psychometric information on the measure is available. The present research investigated the psychometric properties of the CEFF with a…

Two analyses of variance (ANOVA) models for item scores are compared. The first is an items by subject random effect ANOVA. The second is a mixed effects ANOVA with items fixed and subjects random. Comparisons regarding reliability, Cronbach's alpha coefficient, psychometric inference, and inter-item covariance structure are made between the…

This paper describes the planning of a qualitative research methodology to develop strategies to improve and expand social interaction skills of deaf-blind students in supported employment settings. Characteristics of qualitative research are delineated and include: definition of the domain of the research; an evolving study design; behavior…

A many-faceted Rasch model (FACETS) is presented for the measurement of writing ability. The FACETS model is a multivariate extension of Rasch measurement models that can be used to provide a framework for calibrating both raters and writing tasks within the context of writing assessment. A FACETS model is described based on the current procedures…

Using a 6-week, test-retest design with 37 third-grade students, the stability of the Reading Style Inventory (RSI) was assessed. The consistency of the recommended reading method interventions that derive from the RSI was also examined. The RSI consists of 52 items organized into two sections. The first section contains 14 three-option questions…

The development of a project to assess the effectiveness of schools in a large urban school district is described in this paper, with a focus on improving the validity of school effectiveness instruments. Purposes of the project were to develop a methodology for reporting effective school strategies and to generate a broader profile of schools'…