A study (n=242) investigated the effectiveness of a simple seven-item scale designed to quantify indices of emotional distress during the rectal-genital phase of a child sexual-abuse examination. The Genital Examination Distress Scale found increased distress was associated with positive physical findings. (CR)

To address the issue of the Strong Interest Inventory's (SII) cross-cultural relevance, SII developers collected race and ethnicity data from their participants during the development of the 1994 SII. This study examines whether the outcome of the 1994 SII is comparable for different racial/ethnic groups in the United States. Trends and important…

Reports findings of five studies that address the development and validation of a measure of attitudes toward career counseling, the Attitudes Toward Career Counseling Scale (ATCCS). Findings suggest that the ATCCS measures attitudes that are related but not identical to those found for seeking professional help in general. (Author/GCP)

Fifty-seven individuals with severe mental retardation, including 18 with a diagnosis of depression, 19 with autism and 20 without emotional disorders, tested the validity of the Diagnostic Assessment for the Severely Handicapped II (DASH-II) depression subscale. Results found DASH-II to be a valid indicator of depression. (CR)

The relationship between teachers' judgments of students' academic achievement and students' performances on an achievement test was investigated (N=12 teachers; N=47 students). Accuracy of teachers' judgments, the relationship between judgments and performances, and the effect of high vs. low achievement status on judgments were studied.…

This study evaluated the content, concurrent, and construct validity of the Leadership Skills Inventory (LSI), a measure designed to help students analyze the strength of their leadership skills. Results indicated satisfactory content, concurrent, and construct validity, although factor analysis revealed that the LSI contained only one factor, not…

A study involving 92 adults with mental retardation examined the validity and reliability of the Leisure Assessment Inventory. Two indexes (Leisure Activities Participation and Leisure Interests) demonstrated higher reliability from test to retest whereas the remaining two (Leisure Preference and Leisure Constraints) showed only moderate…

Describes the development of the College and University Community Inventory (CUCI), an instrument designed to measure the extent of community within colleges and universities for students. Article discusses the methods for establishing the instrument's validity and ascertaining reliability indices. (Contains 18 references.) (Author/GCP)

Compared four standard-setting procedures for an objective structure clinical examination (OSCE) in medical education. Applied Angoff, borderline, relative, and holistic procedures to the data used to establish a cutoff score for a pass/fail decision. The Angoff and borderline procedures gave similar results; however, the relative and holistic…

Discussion of the practice in the United Kingdom of permitting disabled students to take an alternative form of assessment focuses on implications vis-a-vis assessment principles. It concludes that alternative assessments are compensatory in nature, violate the principles of assessment, and undermine the validity of assessment in higher education.…

Presents data showing that the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory's (CDI) large variability, lack of stability, and insufficient ability to predict early language delay are authentic reflections of individual differences in early language development rather than measurement deficiencies. Responds to critiques regarding sociodemographic…

Outlines the purposes of statistical analysis and types of research questions that can be answered. Defines data types as a guide for choosing statistical tools. Describes a hypothetical research study on teaching computer software to illustrate the use of analytical tools. (SK)

Confirmatory factor analysis was used to derive and cross-validate the factor structure of the Pain Response Inventory (PRI), a measure of children's coping responses to recurrent pain, with 688 school children, 120 children with abdominal pain, and 175 former abdominal pain patients. Results suggest that different health outcomes are predicted by…

The Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory (OCI), a new self-report measure for determining the diagnosis and severity of obsessive- compulsive disorder (OCD), was validated with 141 patients with OCD, 58 with social phobia, 44 with posttraumatic stress disorder, and 194 nonpatients. The OCI exhibited satisfactory reliability and validity with all four…

This paper describes the development and empirical investigation of two new paper-and-pencil measures of elementary cognitive tasks (PP ECTs). In three empirical studies involving 333 adults, the PP ECTs proved reliable. They were substantially correlated with other measures of psychometric intelligence and they displayed convergent validity with…