The design, administration, scoring, and results of the 1993 New York State Correctional Captain Examination are described. The examination was administered to 405 candidates. As in previous Sergeant and Lieutenant examinations, candidates also completed latent image written simulation problems and open/closed book multiple choice test components.…

A study explored the reliability of methods for analyzing the thematic organization of texts. Five linguists, two of whom were native speakers of Swedish and three of whom were native speakers of Finnish, analyzed the thematic organization of a Swedish popular scientific article, using an analysis that focused on coherence reflected in the…

When faced with having to assign a grade to a student's oral proficiency in a small group discussion, how can teachers consistently evaluate each student? Because a student's adeptness at a foreign language can vary from one ability to another, it is unfair to evaluate his or her performance solely by grammatical and lexical accuracy or by any…

In 1991, a study was conducted of Miami-Dade Community College students' classroom experiences. The process involved randomly selecting one section for each full-time faculty member and administering the surveys prior to the final course withdrawal date. Surveys were returned from 640 sections (84% of those initially selected), and responses were…

The Computerized Inventory of Developmental Writing Traits (CIDWT) is meant to provide a valid reliable measure of program improvement, particularly for teachers implementing a process writing approach in their classrooms. While standardized tests, portfolio, and holistic scoring all have something to offer, the CIDWT is an inexpensive direct…

The Supervisory Working Alliance Inventory (SWAI) developed by J. F. Efstation, M. J. Patton, and C. M. Kardash (1990) was further evaluated for its psychometric properties and relationships with the Personal Reactions Scale--Revised (PRS-R) developed by E. L. Holloway and B. E. Wampold (1984), the only other measure of the relationship in…

One difficulty in studying the long-term impact of divorce on children has been the lack of a reliable and valid measure of parental conflict for divorced parents. Items for a post-divorce conflict scale were written and tested using 32 male and 63 female college students from divorced families for Study 1 and 60 male and 75 female students from…

This paper offers reasons for using traditional quantitative research methods and illustrates some of the considerations demanding rigor in a study on gender discrimination in school-administrator salaries. Traditional quantitative methods provide a meaningful language based on numbers and objectivity, and they are less time-consuming and complex…

This study analyzed English language tests administered in Brazil as part of a university entrance examination, focusing on the authenticity of its tests of second language reading comprehension, the concept of reading as an interactive process between reader and text, a proficiency-based view of language instruction, and the psychometric…

A previous research report described a prototype measure of the skill of negotiation in interpersonal competency and the results of an initial validation study of that measure. This report describes the results of two further validation studies of the computer simulation negotiation skill measure. In study 1, 37 second- and third-year law students…

This manual describes professional practices in intervention and treatment of sexual abuse and discusses how to address the problems of sexually abused children and their families. It makes an assumption that the reader has basic information about sexual abuse. The discussion focuses primarily on the child's guardian as the abuser. The manual…

Pronunciation is an important subskill in second language learning, therefore worth evaluating. Its quality is commonly assessed in a global, impressionistic way by having learners read aloud. While this allows comparison of examinees' skills, ability to read aloud is a possible confounding variable. An alternative method is to have learners read…

This paper describes the development and validation of the Perception of Parents Scale (POPS), which was designed to measure the transformation in parent-child relations from the initial positions of authority and obedience to the mature position of mutual reciprocity. A 51-item, 4-point Likert scale was designed. Items were divided into three…

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development/reliability/validity of a teacher instrument to assess the organizational coupling structure (OCS) of schools. A secondary purpose is to describe the implications of this work for understanding school coupling structure as a complex, "paradoxical" measurement and theoretical…

This ERIC Digest was adapted from the Association for Childhood Education International's (ACEI) 1991 position paper on standardized testing. Since the publication of "A Nation at Risk" in 1983, standardized testing programs have expanded greatly. Tests may be of pencil-and-paper or performance-oriented varieties. The purposes of tests…