The twin issues of reliability (consistency) and validity (relevance) of student ratings of teacher performance, and the overall issues of generalizability, continue to arise in assessing the usefulness of this faculty evaluation technique. Recent literature addressed four basic questions regarding these issues as they pertain to two faculty…

The author conducted a cross national analysis of sociological research reported in leading journals at two points in time over a ten year period to determine if sociologists' ability to produce valid social generalizations had improved significantly over the recent past. The official journals of the United States (American Sociological Review),…

Three related studies were conducted to examine the effects of variations in procedures used for curriculum-based assessment of reading proficiency: the first addressed the question of the influence of sample duration on the concurrent validity of the measure; the second addressed the question of the influence of sample duration on the level,…

A series of studies on conceptual and design problems in competency-based measurements are explained. The concept of validity within the context of criterion-referenced measurement is reviewed. The authors believe validation should be viewed as a process rather than an end product. It is the process of marshalling evidence to support…

The purpose of this research was to investigate the diagnostic validity of the Maryland Diagnostic Arithmetic Test (MDAT) as a group-administered test. The MDAT is a domain-referenced diagnostic test consisting of several sub-tests covering the content of elementary school arithmetic from sets to non-negative rational numbers. Forty-five…

In order to determine whether preschool children can successfully identify externalizing symptomatic behaviors (aggression and hyperactivity) in their male classmates, and whether children's perceptions are associated with peer-rated popularity and rejection, 154 preschool boys and girls were interviewed through the use of a peer-nominating…

The relative contribution of a variety of variables to different self-concept sub-constructs requires further exploration despite the existence of vast research about overall self-regard. The contributions of demographic, achievement, achievement motivation, and school self-concept dimensions to the prediction of the physical, moral-ethical,…

The Bilingual Oral Language Test (BOLT-English) was pilot tested in January 1976, field tested in April 1976, and again in October, November 1976, on a population of more than 3,000 students in the San Francisco Bay Area, Pomona, Riverside, and Palm Springs, California. Results reported include concurrent validity values of .9 and .86 when…

The effectiveness of a strategy for improving performance on multiple choice items for examinees with different levels of test anxiety was assessed. Undergraduate measurement students responded to the Mandler-Sarason Test Anxiety Scale and to an objective test covering course content. Results indicated that, for most examinees, generation of an…

Since 1975, the Chicago public schools have been conducting ongoing research and development related to the identification and remediation of prekindergarten children with potential learning problems. The present study describes initial efforts toward the creation of a longitudinal data base aimed at determining (1) prekindergarten-age…

The Joint Dissemination Review Panel (JDRP) examines educational interventions and determines their effectiveness. This study's purpose was to assess this review process and identify common characteristics of submittals and ways in which approvals and rejections differed. A locally-developed instrument which collected data on the intervention's…

A computer managed instruction (CMI) package to teach BASIC programming, together with questions to be answered in its evaluation, are described. The training package consists of 16 learning modules coupled; an interactive CMI system generates pretests and posttests for each module and branches students to the next appropriate module. It is…

Evaluation is viewed as essential to decision making and social policy development. Since conventional methods have been disappointing or inadequate, naturalistic inquiry (N/I) differs from conventional science in minimizing constraints on antecedent conditions (controls) and on output (dependent variables). N/I is phenomenological rather than…

The development of a contextual classroom observation system is described. The system consists of an instrument, trained observers, data handling, and analysis. Thus, instrument development was necessarily paralleled by the development of training procedures, data recording and processing systems, programming, and analytic techniques. The…

Arguments have recently been put forth that standard textbook procedures for determining the sample size necessary to achieve a certain level of power in a completely randomized design are incorrect when the dependent variable is fallible because they ignore measurement error. In fact, however, there are several correct procedures, one of which is…