One of the most established "truths" in suicidology is that almost all (90% or more) of those who kill themselves suffer from one or more mental disorders, and a causal link between the two is implied. Psychological autopsy (PA) studies constitute one main evidence base for this conclusion. However, there has been little reflection on the…

Young children's expected social behaviors develop within particular cultural contexts and contribute to their academic experience in large part through their relationships with their teachers. Commonly used measures focus on children's problem behaviors, developed from psychopathology traditions, and rarely situate normative and positive…

The purpose of this study was to develop a scale in order to measure prospective teachers' attitudes towards the Curriculum Development and Instruction course. The study group was composed of 286 prospective teachers. The process of developing the Attitude Scale involved a literature scan, taking student opinions through essays, creating an item…

The most fundamental reason why teachers are evaluated is because public schools take public money, and the public has a right to expect high-quality teaching. But there are two more basic purposes: (1) to ensure teacher quality; and (2) to promote professional development. The challenge is merging these two purposes of teacher evaluation.…

Purpose: Many adults with aphasia demonstrate concomitant deficits in working memory (WM), but such deficits are difficult to quantify because of a lack of validated measures as well as the complex interdependence between language and WM. We examined the feasibility, reliability, and internal consistency of an "n"-back task for…

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have had a significant impact on business organizations. These large systems offer opportunities for companies regarding the integration and functionality of information technology systems; in effect, companies can realize a competitive advantage that is necessary in today's global companies. However,…

Background: Physical fitness is relevant for wellbeing and health, but knowledge on the feasibility and reliability of instruments to measure physical fitness for older adults with intellectual disability is lacking. Methods: Feasibility and test-retest reliability of a physical fitness test battery (Box and Block Test, Response Time Test, walking…

This paper reports an attempt to develop and validate a bilingual Persian version of the Vocabulary Size Test (VST). Due to the particular educational system in Iran, there is a dire need for a test that can effectively estimate English learners' vocabulary sizes. Previous research (Nguyen and Nation, 2011) has indicated that bilingual versions of…

The study is aimed to examine the psychometric characteristics of the Duke Social Support Scale (DSSI) in young rural Chinese individuals (379 suicides, 411 controls) aged 15-34 years. Social support was measured by 23-item DSSI, which included Social Interaction Scale, Subjective Social Support, and Instrumental Social Support. DSSI had high…

This study investigates the consistency between human raters and an automated essay scoring system in grading high school students' English compositions. A total of 923 essays from 23 classes of 12 senior high schools in Taiwan (Republic of China) were obtained and scored manually and electronically. The results show that the consistency between…

This paper first analyzed two studies on rater factors and rating criteria to raise the problem of rater agreement. After that the author reveals the causes of discrepencies in rating administration by discussing rater variability and rater bias. The author argues that rater bias can not be eliminated completely, we can only reduce the error to a…

Research indicates that many elementary students do not comprehend that the equal sign is an indication that an equality relation exists between two structures. Instead, they perceive the equal sign as an indication that a particular procedure is to be performed. As students mature, and as their exposure to the equal sign and equality relations in…

The focus of this presidential address is on the contemporary treatment of reliability and validity in educational assessment. Highlights on reliability are provided under the classical true-score model using tools from latent trait modeling to clarify important assumptions and procedures for reliability estimation. In addition to reliability,…

This article presents preliminary evidence of the reliability and validity of a measure of self-authorship derived from 18 items in the Career Decision Making Survey. The research conceptualizes a quantitative measure of self-authorship as a three-part score that reflects level of agreement with statements at each of the first three phases of…

Uysal's article provides a research agenda for IELTS and lists numerous issues concerning the test's reliability and validity. She asks useful questions, but her analysis ignores the uncertainties inherent in all language test development and the wider social and political context of international high-stakes language testing. In this response, I…