Objective: To develop an instrument to examine tobacco-free campus policy components. Participants: Missouri two- and four-year, specialized/technical, and religious colleges and universities (N = 76). Methods: The instrument was informed via literature review and expert interviews. Coder agreement was strong ([kappa] = 0.80). Qualitative policy…

This dissertation presents an innovative approach to examining the keying method, wording method, and construct validity on psychometric instruments. By employing a mixed methods explanatory sequential design, the effects of keying and wording in two psychometric assessments were examined and validated. Those two self-report psychometric…

Human pro-environmental behavior in the private sphere is an important factor which influences nature and the environment and thus can contribute to the management of environmental problems. Although there are a variety of self-reported measurement tools for pro-environmental behavior, an established and validated measurement instrument for…

Advocacy has long been heralded as a way to create change for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and their families. However, without an established measure, it is difficult to accurately characterize advocacy activities. Drawing from extant research, the Advocacy Activities Scale was developed to assess three…

Background: The Quality of Life Enjoyment and Satisfaction Questionnaire Short Form (Q-LES-Q-SF) is a well-established, clinically feasible measure of quality of life concerns when assessing relatively severe clinical populations of adult patients. To what degree might the Q-LES-Q-SF facilitate identifying quality of life concerns among parents of…

The purpose of this study was to develop and test the internal and external reliability of a novel research instrument which measures language support for international faculty members and its effects on integration. While previous research has focused on the contributions of international faculty and efforts to attract them, growing concerns…

Adolescent anhedonia is a multidimensional construct defined as the loss of enjoyment or pleasure across multiple domains of life. Anhedonia is concurrently associated with substantial impairment and distress, and it prospectively predicts the onset, severity, and treatment of depression. Despite its demonstrated importance, a limited number of…

Measurement-based care, an evidence-based practice endorsed by the American Psychological Association, is underpinned by routine assessment supporting a data-driven approach to clinical decision making. Nonetheless, there is a need for brief, nonproprietary measures assessing non-symptom-based outcomes. The present study examined the psychometric…

The present study aims to translate the questionnaires of Parents' Attitudes toward Early Childhood Career Development (PAECCD) and Parents' Attitudes toward Vocational Education Implementation in Preschool Curriculum (PAVEIPC) into Chinese versions (PAECCD-C and PAVEIPC-C) and examines their reliability and validity through two studies. In Study…

The Caring for Bliss Scale (CBS) is a new measure that assesses an individuals' capacity to cultivate inner joy and happiness. Developed in the United States, its generalizability remains unknown in non-Western contexts. This research explored the scale's cross-national invariance among college students in the Philippines (n = 546) and the United…

This article reports on the development and psychometric evaluation of a new teacher observation instrument to systematically assess young primary school students' well-being and detect potential indicators of psychological trauma, the RaPTOSS: "Risk and Protective factors Trauma Observation School Situations." The RaPTOSS is developed…

Background: Valid and reliable instruments for measuring emotional development are critical for a proper diagnostic assignment in individuals with intellectual disabilities. This exploratory study examined the psychometric properties of the items on the Scale of Emotional Development--Short (SED-S). Method: The sample included 612 adults with…

Regression discontinuity (RD) designs have gained significant popularity as a quasi-experimental device for evaluating education programs and policies. In this paper, we present a comprehensive review of RD designs, focusing on the continuity-based framework, the most widely adopted RD framework. We first review the fundamental aspects of RD…

This study is a validation of the LENA system for the Italian language. In Study 1, to test LENA's accuracy, seventy-two 10-minute samples extracted from daylong LENA recordings were manually transcribed for 12 children longitudinally observed at 1;0 and 2;0. We found strong correlations between LENA and human estimates in the number of Adult Word…

In low-stakes testing contexts, there are minimal personal consequences associated with examinee performance. Examples include assessments administered for research, program evaluation, test development, and international comparisons (e.g., Programme for International Student Assessment [PISA]). Because test-taking motivation can suffer in…