The twofold purpose of this study was to investigate the reliability and construct validity of scores on the Japanese version of an academic self-concept scale titled the Dimensions of Self-Concept (DOSC) Form H and ascertain any relationships between scores on the DOSC scale and selected demographic variables, including class, gender, and…

Examines testing practices in: (1) the past, in which the traditional paradigm left little room for cognitive psychology principles; (2) the present, in which testing research is enhanced by principles of cognitive psychology; and (3) the future, in which the potential of cognitive psychology should be fully realized through item design.…

The sporadic investigations regarding children's concepts of death have lacked standard methods or instruments for evaluating these conceptions. Whether or not research on children's concepts of death can be gauged by a standard set of questions is explored in this paper. It reports on the evaluation of a new questionnaire's (Concept of Life and…

Factor analysis has historically been used for myriad purposes in the social and behavioral sciences, but an especially important application of this technique has been to evaluate construct validity. Since in the present milieu both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) are readily available to the researcher,…

This study examined the comparability of scores on the National Nurses Aides Assessment Program (NNAAP) test across language and administration condition groups for calibration and validation samples that were randomly drawn from the same population. A sample of 20,568 candidate responses to 1 test form was used. This examination is given in…

One of the most salient requirements for international educational research is the use of comparable measures. For the comparison of student performance across countries the use of item response theory (IRT) scaling techniques facilitates the collection of cross-nationally comparable measures. But there is also a need for valid and comparable…

The importance of reassessing the psychometric properties of an existing scale is highlighted. The construct validity of a driver attitude scale was not confirmed by factor analysis and the original scale scores were shown to have poor to moderate internal reliability. On the basis of a re-analysis of data from 1,059 repeat traffic offenders, 39…

A validation strategy is proposed for professional licensure tests after reviewing arguments for incorporating a theory of professions into the test development process. Components of such a theory are described, and a methodology is proposed for licensure test design that balances the concepts of content and construct validation. (SLD)

Articles in this special issue attempt to address the most significant aspect of certification and licensing testing programs: validity. Although construct validity has become the prevailing model, the theoretical formulation of the construct of competence remains a topic of considerable debate. (SLD)

The Adolescent Coping Scale (E. Frydenberg and R. Lewis, 1993) (ACS), developed in the Australian context, has been used widely since 1993 as an instrument to measure coping. Studies to date have published data highlighting the relationship between variables such as age, ethnicity, gender, attitudes and achievement, and coping. In doing so, they…

In many cross-cultural research studies, assessment instruments are translated or adapted for use in multiple languages. However, it cannot be assumed that different language versions of an assessment are equivalent across languages. A fundamental issue to be addressed is the comparability or equivalence of the construct measured by each language…

This paper presents two general approaches to the assessment of knowledge structures, the first of which entails the building of empirical evidence to support cognitive theory. This type of assessment is concerned with attempting to prove the existence of various knowledge structures; that is, evidence that leads to the construct validity of these…

This paper examines the validity of measures of teacher effectiveness from the Tennessee Value Added Assessment System (TVAAS). It considers the following claims regarding teacher effects: (1) they capture teachers' unique contributions to student learning adequately; (2) they reflect adequate standards of excellence for comparing teachers; (3)…

This follow up study is in response to Miller, Fleming, and Brown-Andersons (1998) study of ethnic differences between Caucasians and African-Americans where the authors suggested that the Spiritual Well-Being (SWB) Scale may need to be interpreted differently depending on ethnicity. In this study, confirmatory factor analyses were conducted for…

Accurate personality assessment of youngsters is complex because thorough assessment involves much more than direct assessment of the child. To better understand this challenge, two omnibus instruments for child-personality assessment--the Tell-Me-A-Story (TEMAS) and the Behavior Assessment System for Children Self-Report of Personality (BASC…