The development and validation of an instrument to assess the needs and concerns of elementary school substitutes are described. A literature review identified nine categories of needs for substitute teachers. A factor analysis of item responses for a sample of elementary school substitutes corroborated the existence of nine underlying factors.…

Identifies and critiques a number of instruments that measure developmental aspects of play and leisure, the meaning and significance of leisure, attitudes toward play, the environment of play, and ethnographic and behavior stream methodology. Information on the reliability and validity of the instruments is presented. (SK)

Demonstrates the inadequacy of students' rating of classroom speeches: student raters were both unreliable and sources of considerable error. Emphasizes the importance of training to reduce error rate. (PD)

Attempts to identify the age range during which Type A behaviors emerge and begin to stabilize. A total of 633 children residing in two communities were assessed on the Matthews Youth Test for Health on two occasions approximately 1 year apart. (Author/RH)

Establishes a criterion for and assesses the incidence of friendship among preschoolers. Factors affecting the formation of close association and the consistency of children's interactions with friends and nonfriends were also analyzed. (Author/AS)

Assesses age differences in the reliability of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for children commissioned by the National Institute for Mental Health. The interview, covering a broad range of clinically relevant symptoms and behaviors, was administered to 242 children and their parents. Parent and child were interviewed separately and were…

The Self-Image Questionnaire for Young Adolescents (SIQYA), an adaptation of the Offer Self-Image Questionnaire (OSIQ), designed to measure aspects of self-image among young adolescents, was administered to two groups of sixth graders. The development of the SIQYA is described and reliability and validity results are presented. (EGS)

Investigated the validity of the assumption that arranging items in objective tests in order of increasing difficulty increases student motivation and produces more reliable tests. Results indicate that test reliability was largely independent of item sequence. (Author/JN)

Concludes that there are numerous problems with the test studied. Argues that the abilities it assesses and their relationship to reading and reading instruction are not sufficiently understood to warrant the test's use. (FL)

School districts need valid and reliable information before they make difficult decisions. Objective research can provide a reliable base of information. (MD)

Relationships between intelligence test scores and measures derived from reaction time and perceptual speed procedures were investigated. Only three reaction time measures produced correlations greater than .25 with a general intelligence factor. Test-retest reliability of reaction time measures was low. The reaction time-intelligence relationship…

The indices of item difficulty and discrimination, the coefficients of effective length, and the average item information for both single- and multiple-answer items using six different scoring formulas were computed and compared. These formulas vary in terms of the assignment of partial credit and the correction for guessing. (Author/BW)

This article reviews the Basic Achievement Skills Individual Screener (BASIS), an individually administered achievement battery that consists of skills tests in reading, mathematics, and spelling as well as an optional writing exercise. BASIS is found to be an effective and efficient means of assessing basic skills. (Author/EGS)

The Self Lesson Report Form (SLRF) was designed as an alternative to direct classroom observation or to commonly used questionnaires in which students and/or teachers report on general practices used in their classes. Describes the SLRF, assesses its validity/reliability, and illustrates kinds of information obtained using the SLRF in Israel…

The author discusses a common error in marriage research, i.e. use of a control group. Single scores which are correlated require no randomized control group. Two arrays of scores which are correlated generally require a randomized control group. (Author/HMV)