This article develops a model for longitudinal student achievement data designed to estimate heterogeneity in teacher effects across students of different achievement levels. The model specifies interactions between teacher effects and students' predicted scores on a test, estimating both average effects of individual teachers and interaction…

A new scale, the Student Perception of University Support and Structure Scale (SPUSS), was developed for research on the transition to university. The scale was based on concepts derived from Baumrind's (1971) theory of parenting styles. Data were obtained from two separate cohorts of freshmen (n=759 and 397) attending six Canadian universities of…

Objectives: To determine: (1) the prevalence of harsh punishment among parents in a pediatric clinic, and (2) the sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, and stability of a brief screening measure. Methods: A subset of families involved in a study of child maltreatment prevention were recruited for this study. Two items in a parent screening…

A limited number of studies currently exist focusing on comorbid psychopathology of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Due to the heterogeneity of ASD symptoms, communication deficits, and impairments in intellectual functioning, assessing symptoms of psychopathology is complicated. The "Autism Spectrum Disorders-Comorbidity for…

The Danger Assessment (DA) is an instrument designed to assess the likelihood of lethality or near lethality occurring in a case of intimate partner violence. This article describes the development, psychometric validation, and suggestions for use of the DA. An 11-city study of intimate partner femicide used multivariate analysis to test the…

The goal of the present study was to obtain evidence for the validity of the Teacher Relationship Interview by exploring associations with a well-validated measure of teacher-child relationship quality, the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (Closeness, Conflict, and Dependency), and examining differences between teachers' narratives about the…

This study provides initial evidence for the reliability and structural validity of scores from the Primary Intervention Rating Scale (Lane, Robertson, & Wehby, 2002), an adapted version of the Intervention Rating Profile-15 (Witt & Elliott, 1985) designed to assess faculty's perceptions of social validity of primary prevention plans prior…

The problem of valid measurement of psychological constructs remains an impediment to scientific progress, and the measurement of executive functions is not an exception. This study examined the statistical and theoretical derivation of a behavioral screener for the estimation of executive functions in children from the well-established Behavior…

The purpose of this paper was to examine the psychometric properties of a non-word repetition task (NRT), the Late-8 Non-word Repetition Task (L8NRT). This task was designed similarly to the NRT, but contains only Late-8 consonants to increase articulatory demands and avoid ceiling effects in studies with adolescents and adults. Thirty college…

With the explosive growth of e-portfolios in teacher preparation programs, it is essential for administration and other relevant stakeholders to understand the student perspective of e-portfolios' organizational uses. This article describes the validation of the modified Electronic Portfolio Student Perspective Instrument (EPSPI). The analysis…

The standard approach to test validity requires a realist or externalist philosophical perspective. An idealist or internalist perspective results in a radically different interpretation of validity. If reality is mind-constructed and truth is agreement, then instruments cannot stand separate from what they purport to measure. (MT)

Adults were administered the Shipley Institute of Living Scale (SILS) and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) as a validation study of previously published procedures for estimating WAIS-R Full Scale intelligence quotients from SILS Vocabulary and Abstraction Scores. Correlations were low and prediction was poor. Partial support…

A recent report of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports (PCPFS) found American youth to be in poor physical condition. Some people associated with youth fitness argue that the PCPFS tests are motor fitness-related, not health-related. The issues are discussed. (Author/MT)

Surveyed 101 inpatient psychiatric patients and 99 chemical dependency patients to compare the validities of the Beck Depression Inventory, the Minnesota Multiphasic personality Inventory (MMPI) Depression scale, and the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale. The Zung produced better validity coefficients than the Beck, which yielded higher…

Compared Activity Vector Analysis (AVA) to the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) in 114 employed adults. Examination of descriptions of dimensions defined by obtained structure vectors associated with each instrument based on the canonical correlation linear composites suggested construct validity for the AVA relative to the 16PF…