This study examined emotional and social competence in early adolescence, focusing on the relationship between the ability to identify the emotions of another, emotion regulation, friendship quality, and peer-identified prosocial and overtly aggressive behavior. Gender was examined for potential moderator status. Participating in the study were…

A study was conducted to compare the psychometric qualities of two forms of an identical survey: one administered in a paper-and-pencil format and the other administered in Web format. The survey addressed the topic of college course anxiety and used to survey a sample of 236 undergraduate students. The psychometric qualities investigated included…

The purpose of this study was to develop and establish psychometric properties of the Sexual Orientation Counselor Scale (SOCS), an instrument assessing the awareness, skills, and knowledge of counselors working with lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) populations. The sample consisted of 287 undergraduates, master-level students, doctoral-level…

An instrument was developed to investigate the study behavior of high school students. Based on the Study Behavior Inventory (Bliss and Mueller, 1986), a measure designed to examine the study behaviors of college students, the Study Behavior Inventory-High School Version was developed through the contributions of 10 focus groups of high school…

This report describes ongoing research investigating the use of teachers' assignments as an indicator of classroom practice. The purpose of this work is to develop a measure of students' learning environments that potentially could be used to help monitor the influence of school reform efforts on the quality of the classroom learning environment…

This instrument development study had two goals. The first was to develop a measurement tool that would be valid for research and useful for assessment and intervention in classrooms. The second goal was to develop theory in the area of self-regulated learning. Results of preliminary research and study of the literature suggest that metacognitive…

This report is the product of the first year of study of the Statewide Systemic Initiatives (SSI) Study on exploring data and methods to assess and understand the performance of states participating in the SSI. The report describes three sets of studies. The first studied valid and reliable measures of student achievement, and how to combine…

The second edition of "Foundations of Psychological Testing: A Practical Approach" is a text for undergraduate students new to the field of psychological testing. Using a conversational format, the authors aim to prepare students to be informed consumers as test users or test takers. Features new to the second edition include: (1) New Content; (2)…

One of the tasks of the Council for School Performance is to implement measures of school safety to determine the impact of Georgia Lottery for Education expenditures. During the 1994-95 school year, the council pilot-tested several indicators of school safety. This document presents the results of an evaluation that examined the relevance,…

As schools move toward performance assessment, there is increasing discussion of using these assessments for accountability purposes. When used for making decisions, performance assessments must meet high standards of validity and reliability. One major source of unreliability in performance assessments is interrater disagreement. In this paper,…

This paper compares two methods of establishing content validity, forced-choice judgmental review and a latent category judgmental review. It also compares content validity evidence with the results of a scale reliability analysis and makes recommendations of the two content validity procedures. Two different groups of graduate students enrolled…

This paper reports on an assessment of the cognitive skills section of the "Test of Communication Knowledge." The test was designed by Dr. Rebecca B. Rubin to evaluate learning by undergraduate communication majors in the School of Communication Studies at Kent State University (Ohio). In particular, the test is based on a set of…

Continuing education students are usually mature students who have a wealth of experience from which their peers and the lecturer could profit. An effective teaching method with such students is the use of cooperative work assignments, but a problem that prevents lecturers from using this method is the difficulty of assigning grades to individual…

This technical report focuses on the decision-making potential provided by second language performance assessments. First, performance assessment is situated within the broader discussion of alternatives in language assessment and in educational assessment in general. Next, issues in performance assessment design, implementation, reliability, and…

This paper focuses on how best to evaluate student achievement in science. Many issues such as issues of test construction, validity, and reliability, and how to measure hands-on achievement must be considered. Qualitative evaluations are harder to explain, but can yield valuable information. The use of portfolios is an example of a technique that…