This article summarizes the important ideas and research findings of DISCOVER, an on-going program of research and development concerning the problem solving abilities of children and youth. It identifies five problem types and reviews the DISCOVER assessment model, including research on its reliability and validity and the DISCOVER curriculum…

This study demonstrates the potential utility of the Behavioural Style Observational System (BSOS) as a new observational measure of children's behavioural style. The BSOS is an objective, short and easy to use measure that can be readily adapted to a variety of home and laboratory situations. In the present study, 160 mother-child dyads from the…

Although there are thousands of studies investigating work and job design, existing measures are incomplete. In an effort to address this gap, the authors reviewed the work design literature, identified and integrated previously described work characteristics, and developed a measure to tap those work characteristics. The resultant Work Design…

This paper reports evidence on the factor structure, reliability, and validity of the Chinese Family Assessment Instrument (C-FAI), an instrument developed to assess family functioning in Chinese populations. A convenience sample of 1,462 adolescents from junior secondary schools completed the C-FAI and measures of parent-adolescent conflict.…

Using an experimental mixed design, this study compared the traditional paper-and-pencil method for evaluating teaching with the online method. Replicating previous findings, the comparison revealed similar evaluation means of the two methods. However, the stability of teaching evaluations using paper-and-pencil twice was substantially higher than…

The authors investigated the structure and measurement of ethnic identity using the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM; J. S. Phinney, 1992) on a diverse sample of Asian American college students. The authors drew upon 3 previously published datasets to examine the factor structure of the MEIM, initial reliability and construct validity,…

Terminology in the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) Scale of DSM-IV often is irrelevant to the realities of nursing homes, assisted living centers, and similar facilities in which residents encounter stressors that are unique to their living environment and circumstances. As the mental health needs of long-term care residents are…

The authors evaluated self-report instruments currently being used to assess children and adolescents with psychopathic personality traits with respect to their reliability, validity, and research utility. Comprehensive searches across multiple computerized bibliographic databases were conducted and supplemented with manual searches. A total of 30…

The purpose of this study was to test and assess the reliability and validity of a modified stress scale in a sample of pharmacy graduate students. The modified stress scale was used as part of a larger, nationwide, study whose aim was to investigate the association of stress, perceived academic success and health-related quality of life among…

The aim of this study was to investigate pre-service physical education teachers' self-assessment of their competent levels in achieving the national standards for beginning physical education teachers (National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE), 1995). One hundred seventy-three pre-service teachers in 10 physical education…

Due to globalization in recent years, organizations and the government in Taiwan take developing human expertise more seriously than ever before. However, human resource development evaluation practices in Taiwan have somewhat overlooked connecting training to transfer and organizational results. To help close the gap, organizations in Taiwan need…

Coefficient alpha, the most commonly used estimate of internal consistency, is often considered a lower bound estimate of reliability, though the extent of its underestimation is not typically known. Many researchers are unaware that coefficient alpha is based on the essentially tau-equivalent measurement model. It is the violation of the…

In 1999 Stephen Gorard published an article in this journal in which he provided a trenchant critique of what he termed the "politician's error" in analysing differences in educational attainment. The main consequence of this error, he argued, has been the production of misleading findings in relation to trends in educational performance over time…

Social anxiety disorder and social anxiety are highly prevalent psychological conditions in youth. Because of the known risks associated with the spectrum of social anxiety in youth, early detection with valid and reliable assessment measures is imperative. Self-report measures have become the most widely used method of assessment for child and…

This study extends previous work on survey validity and reliability by examining how different groups of respondents vary in their answers to survey questions about the policy system. The study uses state-representative data from a five-state study of standard-based reform in mathematics to test how predictive teacher, principal, and district…