In the United States as well as in much of the developed world, many of us tend to take for granted that children who do well on teacher-made and standardized tests are intelligent. But different cultures have different views of intelligence, so which children are considered intelligent may vary from one culture to another. Moreover, the acts that…

The "gold standard" for evaluating human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention programs is a partner-by-partner sexual behavior assessment that elicits information about each sex partner and the activities engaged in with that partner. When collection of detailed partner-by-partner data is not feasible, aggregate data (e.g., total…

Recent trends have shown increasing privatization of standardization activities under various corporations, trade associations, and consortia, raising significant public policy issues about how the public interest may be represented. This book establishes a framework of analysis for public policy discussion and debate. Discussing topics such as…

The performance of five simple multiple imputation methods for dealing with missing data were compared. In addition, random imputation and multivariate normal imputation were used as lower and upper benchmark, respectively. Test data were simulated and item scores were deleted such that they were either missing completely at random, missing at…

Ninety-five persons receiving treatment for chronic pain were surveyed using the Spirituality and Chronic Pain Survey (SCPS). The survey included a pain assessment, a spiritual/religious practices assessment, and questions related to spiritual/religious beliefs and attitudes. Most participants reported experiencing constant, higher-level pain. The…

Including youth in the evaluation process can enhance the quality of the inquiry and be empowering for the participants, but it is not without challenges. In this article, several principles for youth-involved research and evaluation are outlined. These come from those who are pioneering this approach and from current research on the dilemmas of…

Available resources and indicators of high quality inclusive practices are presented in this compilation. Assembling many different resources in one place allows for easy comparison of potential indicators of quality. Excerpts and adaptations of the resources are intended to provide some familiarity with the content of each resource and encourage…

Today's language classroom is vastly different from that of the mid- to late 20th century. The study is a meta-analysis of recent research which provided the means to identify current and emerging trends in the field. Informed by this research, some identified trends that are shaping the 21st century language classroom are outdated practices such…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 allows schools to use a child's response to research-based intervention (RTI) as a part of procedures to identify students with learning disabilities. This paper considers whether RTI-based assessment models meet ethical and legal standards for acceptable assessment practices.…

This article introduces a bootstrap generalization to the Modified Parallel Analysis (MPA) method of test dimensionality assessment using factor analysis. This methodology, based on the use of Marginal Maximum Likelihood nonlinear factor analysis, provides for the calculation of a test statistic based on a parametric bootstrap using the MPA…

Cluster randomized trials (CRTs) have been widely used in field experiments treating a cluster of individuals as the unit of randomization. This study focused particularly on situations where CRTs are accompanied by a common complication, namely, treatment noncompliance or, more generally, intervention nonadherence. In CRTs, compliance may be…

Recent work has shown that multidimensionally scoring responses from different tests can provide better ability estimates. For educational assessment data, applications of this approach have been limited to binary scores. Of the different variants, the de la Torre and Patz model is considered more general because implementing the scoring procedure…

All evaluators face the challenge of striving to adhere to the highest possible standards of ethical conduct. Translating the AEA's Guiding Principles and the Joint Committee's Program Evaluation Standards into everyday practice, however, can be a complex, uncertain, and frustrating endeavor. Moreover, acting in an ethical fashion can require…

This article illustrates the use of an explanatory item response modeling (EIRM) approach in the context of measuring group differences in science achievement. The distinction between item response models and EIRMs, recently elaborated by De Boeck and Wilson (2004), is presented within the statistical framework of generalized linear mixed models.…

This randomized clinical trial compared the relative efficacy of individual (child) cognitive-behavioral therapy (ICBT), family cognitive-behavioral therapy (FCBT), and a family-based education/support/attention (FESA) active control for treating anxiety disordered youth ages 7-14 years (M = 10.27). Youth (N = 161; 44% female; 85% Caucasian, 9%…