Reports on the development of the Hebrew language translation of the Bath County Computer Attitude Scale among a sample of 339 undergraduate students in Israel. The data support the reliability and validity based on frequency, correlation, reliability, and factor routines analyzed with the SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences).…

This study compared fears and social anxiety in children with (n=57)and without (n=25) developmental disabilities, using self-ratings and parent ratings. Children without disabilities showed significantly higher consistency over time than children with disabilities. Correlations between parent and child ratings were fair to good. (DB)

Reports on a study of 14-15 year old students' ideas about combustion. Describes patterns of students' explanations across a range of questions and analyzes them to gain insight into both the degree of consistency of their explanations and how this may affect the process of conceptual change in the students. (Contains 35 references.) (Author/YDS)

Adventure education research struggles to measure components of the field's larger, complex processes and outcomes. Because valid measures provide the foundation of quantitative research, finding, assessing, and utilizing good measures of the outcomes and processes of adventure education are necessary. Describes measurement techniques, validity,…

Reports on the design and development of the Parent Concerns Questionnaire, an instrument designed to obtain the views of mothers in general, and particularly depressed mothers, in families subject to child and family care intervention. Discusses the reliability and validity of the instrument. (JPB)

This article critiques the research methodology used by Mudford, Hogg, and Roberts (1999) that resulted in a failure to achieve inter-observer agreement on adults with mental retardation when using an experimental, 13-category behavior state code. Arguments are provided on why their videotape study does not meet requirements of acceptable…

Describes five basic elements that need to be considered with every test: backwash; reliability, administrative concerns; validity; and ethics. These elements are discussed in relation to tests for students who are second language learners of English. (Author/VWL)

Describes development and testing of the Literacy Orientation Survey (LOS)--an instrument for assessing teachers' beliefs about literacy learning and classroom practices as related to constructivism. Finds while LOS has robust internal validity and reliability, questions remain about external validity of teachers' self-reports of their…

Analyzed data from a session of the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) mathematics examination to identify items displaying a bi-modal expected score distribution, try to explain the bi-modality, rescore the items to remove under-used middle categories, and determine the effect on test reliability of rescoring the data. Discusses…

Studied the stability of scores on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Third Edition (WISC-III) over a 3-year period for 54 rural school students with learning disabilities. Mean full scale IQ scores did not change significantly between the measurement periods, but 20% of students showed significant change, and 33% of the sample showed…

Study seeks to examine, for South African adolescents, the reliability of the Communities that Care Youth Survey of risk and protective factors for drug use and anti-social behavior, and the extent to which drug use can be predicted from community, family, school, and peer factors. Findings support use of the survey with slight revisions for South…

The Feelings about School (FAS) measure was used to examine factors associated with kindergartners' and first-graders' feelings about school. Findings provided support for the reliability and validity of the FAS for both groups. Students' feelings about school were associated with their academic skills, especially for first-graders. Relation of…

Revised the Community College Student Experiences Questionnaire for Australian university students. Tested the new Australian Quality of Student Experiences Scale on first-year students using a Rasch measurement model. Although 58 items were discarded, the final scale of 62 items had excellent psychometric properties. (EV)

Reports on the development of a 12-item Likert-type measure of collective efficacy in schools designed to assess the extent to which a faculty believes in its conjoint capacity to influence student learning positively. A total of 452 teachers in 47 schools completed a 21-item scale later refined to 12 items. Discusses internal consistency and…

This study investigated the stability of the four factors in the Quality of Life Questionnaire, an instrument often used in quality of life research for people with intellectual disabilities. Only three of the four factors were found to be stable, raising potential concern over the use of the measure in assessing service providers' effectiveness.…