The Test of Reactions and Adaptation in College (TRAC), a measure of students' personal dispositions toward learning, is presented. Results from 2 different samples of college students (n=1,081) indicate acceptable psychometric characteristics for the TRAC. The TRAC predicted college success better than high school weighted academic average did.…

Highlights the application of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) in college counseling, couples counseling, medical problem assessment, military applications, personnel screening programs, and other areas. Provides a general description of the MMPI-2, discusses continuity of MMPI and MMPI-2 scales, and describes new scales…

Presents results of a study developing an informal social skills teacher rating scale for use with early adolescents. Reports that the scale includes skill identification and situational analysis. Provides information on identifying and ranking responses and checking a content validity and reliability. Concludes that the matrix can generate…

Biases that can influence the validity of tests are discussed, such as (1) cultural biases affecting students from ethnic minorities, and (2) biases that affect students with disabilities including those related to test content, instructional format, motivation or cognitive arousal, competition, and physical access to testing materials and…

Reports on the development and testing of the Children's Perception of Interparental Conflict Scale. Three subscales were derived from factor analysis. The validity of the conflict subscale was supported by parent reports of conflict. The threat and self-blame subscales correlated with children's responses to conflict vignettes. (BC)

Alternate reasons for conducting program evaluation in community health care (CHC) settings and their relationships with information needs were explored in a survey of 136 CHC decision makers. Major reasons for conducting program evaluation included accreditation, true evaluation, and pseudoevaluation. Information needs were predictors of true…

Examines ideological representations of how slavery began and a slave's trip to America (the Middle Passage) as depicted in classroom texts in California public schools. Explores the controversy over the adoption of these supposedly multicultural textbooks through interviews with eight African-American parents and four multicultural education…

Describes recent efforts of the Center for Research in Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing (CRESST) to evaluate authentic assessment methods, such as portfolios and performance tests. When comparing the merits of authentic versus multiple-choice testing, it is wise to consider validity, reliability, consequences, fairness, generalization,…

The relationship between grade point average (GPA) and scores on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) for 60 male and 7 female Asian graduate students in engineering was studied. The TOEFL is not an effective predictor of total GPA, although it measures English communication skills. (SLD)

A test with 1,446 high school students in Israel of a multidimensional model of adolescent drug use that incorporates sociodemographic variables, personality variables, cognitive variables, interpersonal factors, and the availability of drugs validated the model longitudinally. Results suggest that different legal and illegal substances share a…

Five countable indices of writing quality were examined for their suitability in making special education screening-eligibility decisions, based on writing samples from 2,160 students. Even the best index was only moderately efficient. "Percentage of words spelled correctly" was best overall, and "percentage of correct word sequences" was best for…

Presents a study of the effect of question order on student performance on economics tests. Reports that question order has no statistically significant effect on examination scores, even after including variables that reflect differential human capital characteristics. Concludes that instructors need not worry that some examination versions give…

Educational researchers are not engaged in discovering mechanistic universal truths sought by positivists or tidy prescriptions about what works. Instead, they provide guidelines and interpretive material to liberate the teacher's intelligence so that the teacher can use whatever ability he or she can achieve. (SLD)

This paper offers a rationale for and a description of the creation of the Developmentally Delayed Children's Behaviour Checklist, which is completed by caregivers or teachers and uses a taxonometric model to describe the child's (ages 4-20) disturbed emotions and behaviors. Results of clinical validation studies are cited. (Author/JDD)

The Competence Enjoyment Scale (CES) was developed to measure parental feelings of competence and enjoyment as they interact with their infants. Mothers of 60 full-term healthy, preterm healthy, and preterm atypical infants were administered the CES to evaluate the instrument. Preliminary results support the reliability and validity of the scale.…