This study investigated the psychometric properties of the Educational and Industrial Testing Service Concept Assessment Kit-Conservation (EITS Kit). Presented are an overview of the concept of conservation, a description of the EITS Kit, and results of the study. (MT)

Presents an integrative definition of the therapeutic alliance that conceptualizes individual, couple and family therapy as occurring within the same systemic framework. The implications of this concept for therapy reserach are examined. Three new systematically oriented scales to measure the alliance are presented along with some preliminary data…

Participants (N=12) met individually with a counselor for 20 minutes each. The interviews were videotaped. Participants rated two types of recalled affect at the times of occurrence of each of six counselor nonverbal gestures. Results support moderate reliability for videotape-assisted recall ratings of recalled affect. (BH)

The response to a previous article by Mardell-Czednowski and Lessen notes the lack of common criteria for evaluating technical adequacy of assessment instruments used with handicapped children and stresses the need to evaluate instruments with the specific populations to which they are administered. (DB)

Assessed Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised test-retest stability for 21 psychiatric and neurological patients. Test-retest interval ranged from 2-144 weeks (x=38 weeks). Subtest stability coefficients were highly significant, yet range of gain or loss for any single individual was comparatively large. Gain or loss was associated strongly…

Reviews the administrative features, uses, development, standardization, reliability, and validity of the Multidimensional Aptitude Battery (MAB), a new group intelligence test designed to be a paper-and-pencil parallel to the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R). (BL)

Defined verbal behavior categories for clients (the Client Verbal Behavior System, CL-VBS), and for counselors (the Counselor Verbal Behavior System, CO-VBS), to match the categories in the Carkhuff and Ivey training models, in order to study the acquisition of the skills and their impact on client responses and outcomes. (Author/JAC)

Analysis indicated that each subscale of the Teacher Stress Inventory, developed to assess occupational stress in teachers of exceptional students, had moderate-to-high internal consistency reliabilities for both strength and frequency dimensions, moderate-to-high correlations between the strength and frequency measures on each factor, and a large…

Six recently published language tests are examined in terms of theoretical models, choice of subtests, test format, reliability, norming population, and reporting scores. The tests are the Screening Test of Adolescent Language, the Word Test, the Test of Language Development-Intermediate, the Fullerton Language Tests for Adolescents, Clinical…

The difficulties in assessing teacher quality due to personal perceptions and attitudes is illustrated in a study of primary school headteachers. Findings indicate that such diversity in views leads to inability to define evaluation criteria. (Author/DF)

The Pictorial Self Concept Scale (PSCS) was developed and field tested with 255 hearing impaired students (grades 4-8). Results suggest that the PSCS appears valid and reliable and requires little dependence on verbal facility. (Author/CL)

Research on the semantic differential technique has provided evidence for variance in Osgood's formulation of dimensions of connotative meaning. Retest data based on Piotrowski's original sample is reported. Results indicate support for stability and consistency of the Evaluation dimension. Moderate consistency was found in scales comprising the…

Discusses Magazine Index's practice of assigning letter grades (sometimes inaccurate) to book, restaurant, and movie reviews, thus allowing patrons to get the point of the review from the index rather than the article itself, and argues that this situation is indicative of the larger problem of reliability of abstracts. (MBR)

The Leyton Obsessional Inventory and the Maudsley Obsessional Compulsive Inventory were administered to 11 obsessive-compulsive adolescents and 10 anxious non-obsessional patients. Obsessional adolescents scored significantly higher than controls on the Maudsley total score and checking factors alone. (Author/RH)

This study examined the accuracy of focused teacher self-reports for nine secondary English teachers. Teacher accuracy was high, suggesting that focused teacher self-reports can gather reliable data on instructional practices. (Author/MT)