This study looks at the fairness of assessing learning journals both as the fairness in creating a valid and robust marking process as well as how different student groups may have unfair disadvantages in performing well in reflective assessment tasks. The fairness of a marking process is discussed through reflecting on the practical process and…

Background: The purpose of this study was to revise and validate the "Individual Child Engagement Record" (ICER), an instrument designed to observe and measure the engagement of children with disabilities in early childhood settings. Method: The ICER was revised with reference to pilot study results and the literature. Inter-observer…

Connectedness to school, teachers, and family are all significant protective factors in adolescents' lives, yet the measurement of each varies considerably. This article describes the measurement properties of three composite scales of adolescent connectedness, adapted from the Add Health study and the California Healthy Kids Survey. These…

Peer review is a gatekeeper, the final arbiter of what is valued in academia, but it has been criticized in relation to traditional psychological research criteria of reliability, validity, generalizability, and potential biases. Despite a considerable literature, there is surprisingly little sound peer-review research examining these criteria or…

To date questionnaires that measure Multiple Intelligences (MIs) have typically not been systematically developed, have poor psychometric properties, and relatively low reliability. The aim of this research was to define the factor structure, and reliability of nine talents which are the behavioural outcomes of MIs, using items representing…

The present study investigated the reliability and factor structure of scores on a 12-item version of Phinney's multigroup ethnic identity measure with an Australian sample from diverse cultural backgrounds. Participants were 485 students aged between 10 and 15 years. The results generally supported the reliability of the ethnic identity scale…

Early years teachers are in need of efficient measures to identify young students who are not making adequate progress in learning to read. The Wheldall Assessment of Reading Lists (WARL) has been developed to meet this need. The test, a curriculum-based measure of word identification fluency, consists of a series of parallel lists of frequently…

Conceptual surveys have become increasingly popular at many levels to probe various aspects of science education research such as measuring student understanding of basic concepts and assessing the effectiveness of pedagogical material. The aim of this study was to construct a valid and reliable multiple-choice conceptual survey to investigate…

It is shown that the Angoff and bookmarking cut scores are examples of true score equating that in the real world must be applied to observed scores. In the context of defining minimal competency, the percentage "failed" by such methods is a function of the length of the measuring instrument. It is argued that this length is largely…

This user guide has been developed for users of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY). It consolidates existing technical documentation and other information into one document. The guide aims to address all aspects of the LSAY data including: how to access the data, data restrictions, variable naming conventions, the structure of the…

Assessing health-related quality of life (HQOL) for children or adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) to corroborate a diagnosis and monitor treatment outcomes, is usually relegated to parent, teacher and physician observation of the child/adolescent. Allowing adults to act as proxy reporters for children/adolescents…

This paper was produced as an added resource for the report "Outcomes from the Productivity Places Program 2009." "Outcomes from the Productivity Places Program 2009" presents information about the outcomes of students who completed their vocational education and training (VET) under the Productivity Places Program (PPP)…

Background: There is a great deal of evidence to support the robust relationship between phonological awareness and literacy development. Researchers are beginning to understand the relationship between the accuracy and distinctiveness of stored phonological representations and performance on phonological awareness tasks. However, many of the…

This is a mixed methods investigation of consistency in PhD examination. At its core is the quantification of the content and conceptual analysis of examiner reports for 804 Australian theses. First, the level of consistency between what examiners say in their reports and the recommendation they provide for a thesis is explored, followed by an…

This investigation reports on the cross-cultural equivalence testing of the Self-Description Questionnaire II (short version; SDQII-S) for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian secondary student samples. A variety of statistical analysis techniques were employed to assess the psychometric properties of the SDQII-S for both the Indigenous and…