School psychologists function as experts in the diagnosis of childrens' educational difficulties. Can the decision-making activities of school psychologists be characterized as expert? Practicing school psychologists (N=10) reviewed cases of children (N=120) being considered for placement in learning disabilities programs. A case consisted of 17…

In 1978 the Principles of Adult Learning Scale (PALS) was developed to measure the degree of practitioner support of the principles of the collaborative teaching-learning mode for teaching adults. Although the original study with a field test group of 57 produced a valid and reliable 44-item summated rating scale, the stability of the normative…

This paper considers, from a theoretical point of view, two measurement approaches used in measuring success and failure in skills tests in physical education. The first, "fixed length" (FL) testing, entails counting the number of successful performances in a fixed number of trials. The second, "trials-to-criterion" (TTC)…

A basic framework is proposed to distinguish between the many ways in which Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) can be evaluated. This includes the purpose of the evaluation, the type of methods that might be used and the measures employed. The framework is not intended to cover all applications but offers one means of structuring a review of…

Three examinations administered to medical students were analyzed to determine differences among severities of judges' assessments and among grading periods. The examinations included essay, clinical, and oral forms of the tests. Twelve judges graded the three essays for 32 examinees during a 4-day grading session, which was divided into eight…

Three contextual factors, the gender of the principal, the choice of subject matter used for the demonstration of competence, and number of years of teaching experience, have been shown to have an effect on the outcome of teacher evaluation. The annual evaluations of 521 elementary personnel using the Florida state-mandated single assessment were…

Two measures of Type A behavior in children were compared. The first, the Matthews Youth Test for Health (MYTH, 1980), is an instrument based on the factors of competitiveness-leadership and impatience-aggression. The second is the A-B Rating Scale (ABRS, 1982), a self-assessment measure for children that is based on the factors of…

The purpose of the present study was to determine how two different data collection techniques would affect the Q-factors derived from several factor analytic procedures. Faculty members (N=146) from seven middle schools responded to 61 items taken from an instrument designed to measure aspects of an idealized middle school culture; the instrument…

The Employability Maturity Interview (EMI) is a 10-item structured interview developed to assess readiness for the vocational rehabilitation planning process and the need for additional vocational exploration and employability services. The items deal with occupational choice, self-appraisal of abilities, self-appraisal of personality…

The Work Performance Assessment (WPA) is a brief work simulation designed to evaluate job maintenance skills, emphasizing work-related social/interpersonal skills rather than specific vocational skills. The WPA uses three work samples involving sorting of food service items to measure 19 common work demands in four categories: responding to…

This paper presents analyses of score reliability for a mathematics placement test developed by the Mathematical Association of America in 1984 for use with undergraduate college students. Subjects included all 589 students seeking admission to the college mathematics curricula at a private university in the South during the course of the study.…

Although some researchers have argued against use of the term "content validity," the ability of a test item to adequately represent the domain of knowledge tested continues to be an issue of paramount importance in test construction. The present paper reviews previous analyses of test content and proposes a new empirical method for…

Eleven judges representing 11 different geographic regions in the United States participated in a standard-setting session designed to determine the possibility of obtaining interjudge consensus and intrajudge consistency simultaneously. Each judge had experience in the field for which standards were being set. The judges rated 65 multiple-choice…

The psychometric properties of the Autonomy and Relatedness Inventory (ARI)--a measure of the quality of primary intimate relationships--was assessed. This 30-item instrument was designed to assess both positive and negative dimensions of any type of dyadic relationship. Cross-sectional data from in-home interviews with 213 mothers with 5- and…

Extensive research efforts in the past decade have measured academic proficiency and progress in both theory and practice of large-scale writing assessment. The following major situational variables were identified in these investigations: (1) topic variables such as writing prompts, subject matter, mode of discourse, length, and rhetorical…