Following the pandemic-related school shutdowns in spring 2020, direct observations continued to be a necessary component of special education evaluations even when students were not present at school. As students began learning at home instead of in classrooms, the continued need for observational data likely compelled most educators to use video…

Rasch and classification analyses on a field-test version of the third edition of the Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System (AEPS-3), a curriculum-based assessment used to assess young children birth to age 6 years, were conducted. First, an evaluation of the psychometric properties of data from each developmental area of an AEPS-3…

This study provides preliminary evidence for reliability and validity of the Hawaii Early Learning Profile Strands 0-3 (HELP Strands 0-3), an assessment instrument for young children. First, the degree of interobserver agreement for a sample of representative HELP items was examined; results indicated that HELP scoring was dependable and…

Student views of treatment acceptability of an intervention is important but still is neither regularly assessed nor studied beyond non-behavioral interventions. Furthermore, assessment of treatment acceptability across time is almost never considered. Using data from a longitudinal, randomized controlled trial, we examined variables that…

The purpose of this article is to provide evidence of the technical adequacy of the Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System--Third Edition (AEPS-3). The AEPS has long been identified as one of the most psychometrically sound early childhood curriculum-based assessments. In this article, results of three studies of technical adequacy are…

The purposes of this study were to examine the factorial validity of the six-item Intragroup Conflict Scale (ICS) in athletic trainer (AT) and coach populations and to examine measurement invariance by gender and profession. A total of 195 ATs and 615 head or assistant coaches working at secondary schools or National Collegiate Athletic…

This study examined how overall quality and within-day consistency in fifth graders' teacher-student interactions related to feelings about, engagement, and academic performance in school. Participants were 956 children in a national study. Students who experienced higher quality interactions reported more positive feelings about school, were more…

Computer-automated assessment of students' text responses to short-answer questions represents an important enabling technology for online learning environments. We have investigated the use of machine learning to train computer models capable of automatically classifying short-answer responses and assessed the results. Our investigations are part…

The purpose of this article is to describe preliminary psychometric characteristics of a student self-report measure of self-determination, the "Self-Determination Inventory: Student Report" version (SDI-SR), designed for youth with and without disabilities. We administered the draft assessment to 311 youth and examined item functioning…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the reliability and perceived pedagogical utility of a multidimensional weighted performance assessment rubric used in Kansas state high school large-group festivals. Data were adjudicator rubrics (N = 2,016) and adjudicator and director questionnaires (N = 515). Rubric internal consistency was…

Generalizability and decision studies provide a mathematical framework for quantifying the stability of a given number of measurements. This approach is especially relevant to the task of obtaining a representative measure of communicative behavior in young children and supports an alternative to the debate regarding which type of assessment…

Purpose: Accurate description of an individual's communication status is critical in both research and practice. Describing the communication status of individuals with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities is difficult because these individuals often communicate with presymbolic means that may not be readily recognized. Our goal was…

Strength-based assessment of behaviors in preschool children provides evidence of emotional and behavioral skills in children, rather than focusing primarily on weaknesses identified by deficit-based assessments. The Preschool Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scales (PreBERS) is a normative assessment of emotional and behavioral strengths in…

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of the special educator within a response-to-intervention (RTI) framework and to examine what instructional behaviors special educators evidence most frequently in the advanced RTI tiers (i.e., tiers beyond tier 1). Specifically, these two issues were investigated with regard to: (a) proportion of…

Purpose: We designed this study to examine the reliability of the nursing home survey process in the state of Kansas using regular and simultaneous survey teams. In particular, the study examined how two survey teams exposed to the same information at the same time differed in their interpretations. Design and Methods: The protocol for…