In this speech, the author covers a lot of ground. In the first half of his speech, the author gives a brief summary of the last 40 years of the history of language testing, from his perspective. The author reviews these years more or less by decade. Additionally, he discusses the evolution of the profession of language testing during this period,…

This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A) in a sample of 296 adolescents (49% boys) in Grades 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12 with a mean age of 15.52 years. Confirmatory factor analysis replicated the three-factor structure of the SAS-A in the Chinese sample: Fear of Negative…

Asperger's syndrome (AS), first diagnosed in 1944, and has only recently begun to receive a great deal of research attention. An emerging controversy has been whether AS is a distinct condition from high functioning autism (HFA), and if so, can it be reliably and validly diagnosed. While measures designed specifically to aid in the screening and…

Background: Results from several studies indicated that a symptom model other than the DSM triad might better describe symptom domains of autism. The present study focused on a) investigating the stability of a new symptom model for autism by cross-validating it in an independent sample and b) examining the invariance of the model regarding three…

Although commercially developed interest measures based on Holland's RIASEC types are effectively used in a variety of applied settings, these measures have somewhat limited research utility due to their length and copyright restrictions placed by the test publishers. In the present study, two sets of 8-item RIASEC scales were developed using…

Robert J. Sternberg often writes about a lecture-style psychology course he took as a college freshman in which he got a C. "There is a famous Sternberg in psychology," the professor told him at the time, "and it looks like there won't be another." To Mr. Sternberg, the vignette illustrates that conventional assessments do not measure all the…

Researchers in a number of disciplines have examined the utility of single-item measures for both affective and cognitive constructs. While these authors have indicated that, under certain circumstances, the use of single-item measures is appropriate, there remains concern regarding the reliability and validity of single-item measures. This study…

This article focuses on the accuracy of satellite data, which may then be used in wave power applications. The satellite data are compared to data from wave buoys, which are currently considered to be the most accurate of the devices available for measuring wave characteristics. This article presents an analysis of satellite- (Topex/Poseidon) and…

The Treatment Motivation Scales for forensic outpatient treatment (TMS-F) is a Dutch 85-item self-report questionnaire for the motivation of forensic outpatients to engage in their treatment and six cognitive and affective determinants of this motivation. Following descriptions of the conceptual basis and construction, the psychometric properties…

This technical report provides an overview of the New York State Alternate Assessment (NYSAA), including a description of the purpose of the NYSAA, the processes utilized to develop and implement the NYSAA program, and Stakeholder involvement in those processes. The purpose of this report is to document the technical aspects of the 2013-14 NYSAA.…

The standard approach to test validity requires a realist or externalist philosophical perspective. An idealist or internalist perspective results in a radically different interpretation of validity. If reality is mind-constructed and truth is agreement, then instruments cannot stand separate from what they purport to measure. (MT)

Adults were administered the Shipley Institute of Living Scale (SILS) and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) as a validation study of previously published procedures for estimating WAIS-R Full Scale intelligence quotients from SILS Vocabulary and Abstraction Scores. Correlations were low and prediction was poor. Partial support…

A recent report of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports (PCPFS) found American youth to be in poor physical condition. Some people associated with youth fitness argue that the PCPFS tests are motor fitness-related, not health-related. The issues are discussed. (Author/MT)

Surveyed 101 inpatient psychiatric patients and 99 chemical dependency patients to compare the validities of the Beck Depression Inventory, the Minnesota Multiphasic personality Inventory (MMPI) Depression scale, and the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale. The Zung produced better validity coefficients than the Beck, which yielded higher…

Compared Activity Vector Analysis (AVA) to the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) in 114 employed adults. Examination of descriptions of dimensions defined by obtained structure vectors associated with each instrument based on the canonical correlation linear composites suggested construct validity for the AVA relative to the 16PF…