In this paper we report on work estimating the stability of value-added estimates of teacher effects, an important area of investigation given public interest in workforce policies that implicitly assume effectiveness is a stable attribute within teachers. The results strongly reject the hypothesis that teacher performance is completely stable…

There is a growing body of research on the validity and reliability of value-added measures, but most of this research has focused on elementary grades. Driven by several federal initiatives such as Race to the Top, Teacher Incentive Fund, and ESEA waivers, however, many states have incorporated value-added measures into the evaluations not only…

This article examines the analysis of the psychometric properties, including the validity and reliability, of the Empathy Index (EI), a new instrument designed to measure empathy deficits of sex offenders. The EI was tested with a sample of 158 sex offenders incarcerated in North Carolina prisons. An exploratory factor analysis yielded three…

The "Personnel Development Program to Improve Services and Results for Children with Disabilities" is authorized under Section 662 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and is known as the Personnel Development Program (PDP). The PDP is administered by the U.S. Department of Education's (ED's) Office of Special…

Schools and districts should use a well-designed needs assessment to inform important decisions about a range of technology program areas. Presently, there is a lack of valid and reliable instruments available and accessible to schools to effectively assess their educational needs to better design and evaluate their projects and initiatives. The…

Objective: The purpose of this study is to assess the reliability and validity of the North Carolina Family Assessment Scale (NCFAS) among families involved with youth mental health services. Methods: Using NCFAS data collected by child mental health intake workers with 158 families, factor analysis was conducted to assess factor structure, and…

As universities continually update and assess their curriculums, mainframe computing is quite often overlooked as it is often thought of as "legacy computer." Mainframe computing appears to be either uninteresting or thought of as a computer past its prime. However, both assumptions are leading to a shortage of IS professionals in the…

In today's economy, employers increasingly demand that workers have a high school diploma, yet America's graduation rates are unacceptably low, particularly among poor and minority students. Nationally, only about 70 percent of students graduate from high school on time with a regular diploma; for African American and Hispanic students, this…

This study addressed seven questions regarding the methods used in setting passing scores on the essay subtest of the National Teacher Examinations (NTE) Communication Skills test for the North Carolina State Board of Education. North Carolina uses these tests to screen prospective applicants to teacher education programs. The judges (five college…

School psychologists are in a unique position to add to the discussion about accountability efforts and the effect on students, teachers, and education. At the end of North Carolina's 2000-2001 school year, End-of-Grade (EOG) scores will be used to hold individual students accountable for their own achievement. Fifth graders will be required to…

By the spring of 2000, forty states had begun using student test scores to rate school performance. Twenty states have gone a step further and are attaching explicit monetary rewards or sanctions to a school's test performance. In this paper, the authors focus on accountability programs in which states measure the effectiveness of individual…

"VIEW: An Assessment of Problem Solving Style" (Selby, Treffinger, & Isaksen, 2002) is a new instrument for assessing problem-solving style, for use with individuals from ages 12 through adult. It measures three dimensions of style relating to creative problem solving and change management. In this article, we discuss the…