Using a sample of 446 secondary students who had participated in a vocational education and training in school VETiS program, compares the experiences and perceptions of students who had undertaken a work placement with those who had not. Shows that students who had participated in work placement enjoyed the VETiS experience more than those who…

The paper describes a study that investigated Malaysian distance learners' perceptions of their English proficiency courses. The approach used in this study was primarily a quantitative approach based on questionnaires, with a qualitative component based on semi-structured interviews included to add depth and scope to the study. The questionnaires…

This study compared factor structures of the Occupational Work Ethic Inventory (OWEI) for self-perceived work attitudes of manufacturing employees and their supervisors' ratings of those same employees. The purpose of the study was to evaluate construct validity through comparative factor analysis. Four factors were generated through principal…

This article describes a method for the intraindividual clinical validation of a cognitive case formulation (CCF) involving hypotheses about the patient's idiosyncratic cognitive schema (ICS). The two-stage approach begins by testing the convergent and discriminant validity of the hypothesized ICS against the individual's daily ratings of…

Competing models of the factorial structure of the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance (PSPCSA) were tested for fit using multisample confirmatory factor analysis. The best fitting model was tested for invariance (a) across samples of middle-class (n251) and economically disadvantaged (Head Start, n=117) kindergarten…

The purpose of this research was to examine why some students made greater gains in reading achievement than did others who participated in one volunteer tutoring program, Reading Partners. The relationships between gains in reading achievement and the texts students read, the experience of the volunteer with whom they worked, and student entering…

The toxic shock syndrome (TSS) crisis is a historical public health success story from which much can be learned and applied to contemporary public health issues. Following the first reports, multiple research teams initiated studies designed to ascertain the risk factors associated with TSS. Those studies evolved over several years--each building…

Despite the theoretical and demonstrated empirical significance of parental coping strategies for the wellbeing of families of children with disabilities, relatively little research has focused explicitly on coping in mothers and fathers of children with autism. In the present study, 89 parents of preschool children and 46 parents of school-age…

Adolescent adjustment measures may be related to each other and to the social environment in various ways. Are these relationships similar in genetic and environmental sources of covariation, or different? A multivariate behaviorgenetic analysis was made of 6 adjustment and 3 treatment composites from the study Nonshared Environment in Adolescent…

The Arabic Scale of Death Anxiety (ASDA) was constructed and validated in a sample of undergraduates (17-33 yrs) in 3 Arab countries, Egypt (n = 418), Kuwait (n = 509), and Syria (n = 709). In its final form, the ASDA consists of 20 statements. Each item is answered on a 5-point intensity scale anchored by 1: No, and 5: Very much. Alpha…

The purpose of this study was to investigate convergent and discriminant validity of the five-factor model of adolescent personality in a school setting using three different raters (methods): self-ratings, peer ratings, and teacher ratings. The authors investigated validity through a multitrait-multimethod matrix and a confirmatory factor…

Dimensions of Emotional Intelligence (EI) were derived, and their place with respect to the cognitive ability and personality domains was examined. A factor analysis of 24 maximum-performance and self-report EI measures administered to an undergraduate sample (N= 176) yielded five factors: Emotional Congruence, Emotional Independence, Social…

The Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS), the most commonly used social desirability bias (SDB) assessment, conceptualizes SDB as an individual's need for approval. The Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR) measures SDB as two separate constructs: impression management and self-deception. Scores on SDB scales are commonly…

This study investigated the interaction between different cultural groups and item type, and the ensuing effect on construct validity for a psychological inventory, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI, Form G). The authors analyzed 94 items from 2 Chinese-translated versions of the MBTI (Form G) for factorial differences among groups of…

In addition to student learning, positive student attitudes have become an important course outcome for many introductory statistics instructors. To adequately assess changes in mean attitudes across introductory statistics courses, the attitude instruments used should be invariant by administration time. Attitudes toward statistics from 4,910…