The paper describes the development and psyhometric validation of an instrument to measure co-worker involvement with employees with handicaps in supported employment settings. The Co-worker Involvement Instrument contains 10 items pertaining to physical integration, social integration, vocational integration, training, associating frequency,…

Test validity is a concept that has often been ignored in the context of latent trait models and in modern test theory, particularly as it relates to computerized adaptive testing. Some considerations about the validity of a test and of a single item are proposed. This paper focuses on measures that are population-free and that will provide local…

Seven features of valid classroom observations procedures, a five-step measurement schemata, and a systematic classroom observation procedure designed to reduce measurement error are presented. The following features are addressed: (1) the inference of the observation is established a priori and confirmed post hoc; (2) craft knowledge and…

A computer simulation was undertaken to determine the effects of using Huynh's single-administration estimates of the decision consistency indices for agreement and coefficient kappa, under conditions that violated the beta-binomial assumption. Included in the investigation were two unimodal score distributions that fit the model and two bimodal…

Using a test-retest research design, a study examined the reliability of the Classroom Reading Inventory (CRI) and the Ekwall Reading Inventory (ERI). Independent variables of test administrator to subject, test administrator to test, subject to test, and test order were randomized. Subjects included 31 children aged 7 through 12 years. The four…

The user of the Vocational Interest Survey (VIS) has available a number of interpretative approaches at various descriptive and qualitative levels. This report provides a brief outline of the various approaches. Whenever all six scales of the VIS are administered, the client's total score on all six scales should be within the average range. The…

The Inventory of Learning Processes (ILP) was developed by Schmeck, Ribich, and Ramanaiah in 1977 as a self-report inventory to assess learning style through a behavioral-oriented approach. The ILP was revised by Schmeck in 1983. The Revised ILP contains six scales: (1) Deep Processing; (2) Elaborative Processing; (3) Shallow Processing; (4)…

The High School and Beyond study is a national large-scale longitudinal survey of a representative sample of approximately 58,000 high school students. Information was collected at various stages from 1980-1986, on over 1,500 variables including achievement in six different areas measured by a 126-item cognitive test. Previous analyses of the…

The family is an obvious group for whom problem solving effectiveness holds importance. Problem solving interaction refers to the manner in which the behavior of family members is organized to resolve situations in which there is an unachieved but attainable goal, and the means to overcoming the barriers to achieving the goal are not apparent, but…

This report describes a statistically designed experiment that was carried out in an operational setting to determine the contributions of different sources of variation to the unreliability of scoring. The experiment made novel use of partially balanced incomplete block designs that facilitated the unbiased estimation of certain main effects…

Examined are developmental changes in infants' strategies for using adults instrumentally to achieve goals. Data were derived from longitudinal observations of 1 girl and 1 boy twin individually interacting with 21 somewhat or totally unfamiliar adults at 2- or 3-week intervals from the age of 4 to 15 months, inclusive. Videotapes of interactions…

This study reports the preliminary results of a research project that focuses on the development of an abbreviated measure of computer anxiety, the Computer Anxiety Scale (CAS)-Short Form (SF), designed for use with upper elementary and secondary school students. The subjects involved in the study included 1075 students in grades 4 through 12,…

The project explored the assessment of vocational decision-making capacities of handicapped students within the educational system, specifically the Decision-Making Interview (DMI) instrument. The adaptability, reliability, validity, and utility of the DMI with handicapped secondary students were investigated. Under an instrument adaptation phase…

School psychologists have traditionally experienced difficulty in assessing children referred for special services. In order to determine if the diagnosis of emotional disturbance in South Carolina schools follows the guidelines provided by the South Carolina Department of Education publication "Procedures for the Survey, Screening,…

Intended for administrators and policymakers as well as teachers, this digest explores approaches to, problems with, and trends in large scale writing assessment. The digest first compares direct and indirect assessment approaches, then examines three approaches to scoring: holistic, primary trait, and analytic. It then discusses issues and…