Over recent years, the credibility of public examinations in England has increasingly come to the fore. Government agencies have invested time and money into researching public perceptions of the reliability and validity of examinations. Whilst such research overlaps into the conceptual domain of trust, trust in examinations remains an elusive…

Evidence from recent research suggests that in the UK the public perception of errors in national examinations is that they are simply mistakes; events that are preventable. This perception predominates over the more sophisticated technical view that errors arise from many sources and create an inevitable variability in assessment outcomes. The…

There were three primary purposes for this study. First, I investigated the psychometric properties of the Sources of Middle School Mathematics Self-Efficacy (SMMSE) scale (Usher, 2007; Usher & Pajares, 2009) with high school students. Validation for expanded use of the SMMSE scale was achieved by assessing the instrument's psychometric…

This two-stage study focused on the undergraduate nursing course that covers topics in general, organic, and biological (GOB) chemistry. In the first stage, the central objective was to identify the main concepts of GOB chemistry relevant to the clinical practice of nursing. The collection of data was based on open-ended interviews of both nursing…

This report documents the reliability and validity of scores on the Preschool-Wide Evaluation Tool (PreSET), an assessment used to measure program-wide implementation of the universal level of positive behavior interventions and support (PBIS) in early childhood settings. Initial analyses of descriptive statistics, item, subscale, and total…

Objective: Professional social workers and emergency workers operating in war contexts may develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following exposure to traumatic events. Impact of trauma must be accurately assessed by researchers via robust models of measurement. In this article, measurement models for the 13-item Children's Revised Impact…

Many standardized educational tests include groups of items based on a common stimulus, known as "testlets". Standard unidimensional item response theory (IRT) models are commonly used to model examinees' responses to testlet items. However, it is known that local dependence among testlet items can lead to biased item parameter estimates…

The Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education (VAL-ED) is a multirater assessment of principals' learning-centered leadership. The instrument was developed based on the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. In this article, we report on the validity and reliability evidence for the VAL-ED accumulated in a national field…

The main purpose of this article is to demonstrate how halo effects may be detected and quantified using two independent ratings of the same person. A practical illustration is given to show how halo effects can be avoided. (Contains 2 tables, 7 figures, and 2 notes.)

Developing normed treatment outcome measures is important to research addressing treatment effectiveness and to improved clinical care. The Preschool Outcome Questionnaire (POQ) is a new measure designed for use with preschool children aged two to six. Designed in collaboration with parents and clinicians, the POQ is brief, easy to administer,…

As a result of this research, a quantitative model and a procedure have been developed to create an online mentoring effectiveness index (EI). To develop the model, mentoring and teaching effectiveness are defined, and then the constructs and factors of effectiveness are identified. The model's construction is based on the theory that…

This study primarily investigated the validity and reliability of the writing assessments and their backwash effects on the undergraduates of Institute of International Studies, Ramkhamhaeng University (IIS-RU). The English-major students had academic writing skills problem, especially among the non-native English speakers, whose writing ability…

In a provocative and influential paper, Jesse Rothstein (2010) finds that standard value added models (VAMs) suggest implausible future teacher effects on past student achievement, a finding that obviously cannot be viewed as causal. This is the basis of a falsification test (the Rothstein falsification test) that appears to indicate bias in VAM…

Two overlapping issues have given rise to this study: the need for assessment instruments to use with Spanish-speaking Latinos and the need for normative data on current and future Spanish-language instruments. Numerous career assessment instruments exist for the English-speaking population. These instruments may be administered on computer-based…

The study sought to investigate the relationship between pornography addiction and psychosocial and academic adjustment of students in universities in Lagos State. In order to achieve this objective, five research questions were formulated and two hypotheses postulated. The subjects for the study consisted of 616 full-time third-year undergraduate…