Examined are questions pertinent to the use of the Position Analysis Questionnaire: Who can use the PAQ reliably and validly? Must one rely on trained job analysts? Can people having no direct contact with the job use the PAQ reliably and validly? Do response biases influence PAQ responses? (Author/KC)

Translation and cultural adaptation of rating scales are two critical components in testing culturally and/or linguistically heterogeneous populations. Despite the proper use of these scales, challenges typically arise from respondents' language, culture, ratiocination, and characteristics of measurement processes. This study investigated factors…

Omitted items cannot properly be treated as wrong when estimating ability and item parameters. A convenient method for utilizing the information provided by omissions is presented. Theoretical and empirical justifications are presented for the estimates obtained by the new method. (Author)

Problems in measuring the attitudes of whites toward blacks have included: (1) Lack of contemporary content in existing measures; (2) Difficulty of determining scale validity; and, (3) The strong social reinforcement for being "tolerant" toward blacks making the assessment of "true" racial attitudes more difficult. The…

The resistance of the Personal Orientation Inventory to deliberate attempts to fake in a positive direction was investigated for samples of Spanish- speaking Nicaraguan students and industrial workers. Results were consistent with findings from American samples, particularly the consistently lower existentiality scores. (Author/JKS)

Three rating scales--with all positive or all negative wording, or a mixture of both--were administered to 522 children in grades four through six. The results indicated that it was difficult for students to indicate agreement by disagreeing with a negative statement. This affected test validity. Author/GDC)

This paper addresses the issue of whether four of the learning styles instruments currently available are of sufficient psychometric quality to warrant their continued use either for research or educational purposes. Four instruments, which purport to measure learning styles, were selected for review. Criteria for selection were based in part on…

This study empirically determined the optimizing weight to be applied to the Wrongs Total Score in scoring rubrics of the general form = R - kW, where S is the Score, R the Rights Total, k the weight and W the Wrongs Total, if reliability is to be maximized. As is well known, the traditional formula score rests on a theoretical framework which is…

The use of computers in areas of testing, selection, and placement processes for those in military services' training programs are viewed in this paper. Also discussed is a review of the motivational and theoretical foundation of admissible probability testing, the role of the computer in admissible probability testing, and the authors' experience…

A tailored testing model employing the beta distribution, whose mean equals the difficulty of an item and whose variance is approximately equal to the sampling variance of the item difficulty, and employing conditional item difficulties, is proposed. The model provides a procedure by which a minimum number of items of a test, consisting of a set…

Likert-type inventories of children's attitude toward the world of work were administered to approximately 1,500 students in grades 2-8. The positively and negatively stated scores were analyzed separately. Agreement with positively stated items showed almost no difference among the various grades. However, the trend toward more disagreement among…

Discusses three possible sources of nonrandom but extraneous variance in self-reported attitude data, and demonstrates that these data may be surreptitious measures of verbal intelligence and language proficiency. (Author/AM)

Several methodological problems (particularly the assumed bipolarity of scales, instructions regarding use of the midpoint, and concept-scale interaction) which may contribute to a lack of precision in the semantic differential technique were investigated. Results generally supported the use of the semantic differential. (Author/JKS)

A Barnum group rated the personal accuracies of a list of personality inventory items and then an equivalent list of bogus feedback. The correlation between their inventory and feedback ratings was highly significant. Variables influencing inventory responding exerted an equal influence upon feedback acceptance. (Author/GDC)

The efficacy of 5 scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) in detecting fake good, fake bad, and honest profiles was investigated for 110 undergraduate students instructed to fake good, fake bad, or respond honestly. An analysis of variance suggests that these validity scales are useful. (SLD)