Seven experiments were conducted concerning decision making and information processing under conditions of uncertainty. Several different experimental tasks were used; all presented the subject with multiple independent sources of information regarding the likelihood that some event would occur. Study 1 subjects were Air Force pilots; all other…

This paper notes the proliferation of literature about the characteristics of Japanese education and culture. Generalizations ranging from reports of remarkable progress in subject disciplines to praise of Japanese technology, social and individual behavior, and systematic accomplishments have been cited. It is contended in this study that some of…

The Personality Inventory for Children (PIC) is an objectively scored, multidimensional measure of child and adolescent behavior, affect, and cognitive ability and can be completed by parents. The overall goal of this project was to evaluate the psychometric characteristics of the PIC as a screening device for use with preschool populations. The…

High rates of attrition among students in Undergraduate Navigator Training (UNT) is a major concern for Air Training Command. The main objective of this research was to evaluate the Basic Navigator Battery (BNB), a multi-test experimental selection instrument, for its potential to increase the validity of the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test…

This computer program, written in BASIC, performs three different calculations of test reliability: (1) the Kuder-Richardson method; (2); the "common split-half" method; and (3) the Rulon-Guttman split-half method. The program reads sequential access data files for microcomputers that have been set up by statistical packages such as…

The High School Course/Grade Information Section (CGIS) of the American College Testing (ACT) Assessment registration folder collects detailed information about the courses students have taken or plan to take in high school, and the grades they have earned in courses they have completed. In this study, data provided by students on the CGIS were…

Rating scales are a typical method for evaluating a student's performance in outcomes assessment. The analysis of the quality of information from rating scales poses special measurement problems when researchers work with faculty in their development. Generalizability measurement theory offers a set of techniques for estimating errors or…

Wheeless' trust and solidarity scales are examined under conditions of positive and negative target person. Valence of stimulus is shown to have a strong influence on the performance of the scales. The problems on Wheeless' scales were not detected in the original validation studies because of the normal validation paradigm. That paradigm…

Current status and new developments in behavioral assessment for clinicians and researchers are discussed. The field of behavioral assessment has attained a recognizable identity in recent years. Behavioral assessment can be defined as the identification of meaningful response units and their controlling variables for the purposes of…

Concern for enhancing construct validity of vocational interest measures provides a focus for scale construction quite distinct from that derived from a criterion-referenced strategy: Construct-oriented measurement implies: (1) substantive definitions of dimensions; (2) concern for internal consistency reliability, as well as generalizability; (3)…

Future research in Follow Through should be eclectic and comprehensive. In particular, the setting for Strand Two of the National Institute of Education's (NIE) research program for Follow Through should provide opportunities for sponsors of innovations to implement programs targeted at many outcomes. There should be a commitment to measuring…

The reliability and validity of the Social Avoidance and Distress (SAD) and Fear of Negative Evaluation (FNE) scales developed by D. Watson and R. Friend (1969) were tested for their use with university students in Thailand. Thai translations of both tests were administered to 176 university students on two occasions, with a month between…

Two major groups of researchers focus on identifying schools that have been unusually effective in terms of their students' achievement: (1) "effective schools" researchers; and (2) those charged with the responsibility of identifying schools for special recognition. However, all legitimate attemps to operationalize school effectiveness…

Seventy-five subjects (Naval F-14 and E-2C crew members) were administered computer-based and paper-based tests of threat-parameter knowledge represented as a semantic network in order to determine the relative reliabilities and validities of these two assessment modes. Estimates of internal consistencies, equivalences, and discriminant validities…

The accuracy of standards obtained from judgmental methods is dependent on the quality of the judgments made by experts throughout the standard setting process. One important dimension of the quality of these judgments is the consistency of the judges' perceptions with item performance of minimally competent candidates. Several interrelated…