Aptitude tests are widely used in selection. However, despite certain advantages their use remains controversial. This paper aims to critically appraise five sources of evidence for the construct validity of the Health Professions Admission Test (HPAT)-Ireland, an aptitude test used for selecting undergraduate medical students. The objectives are…

The purpose of the current study was to assess the gender invariance of an a priori four-factor solution of behavioral consequences of drinking. Results evidenced strong partial measurement invariance, with marginal structural invariance, which signals that the underlying constructs possessed the same theoretical structure for both men and women.

The purpose of the present study was to explore validity of the University Entrance Examination for applicants into English Master's Programs in Iran (Master's UEE) with respect to the Messickian validity framework using the Rasch model. The data of 18821 test takers taking the 2009 version of the UEE were analyzed with Winsteps and R package eRm.…

The Resiliency Scale for Young Adults (RSYA) is presented as an upward extension of the Resiliency Scales for Children and Adolescents (RSCA). The RSYA is based on the "three-factor model of personal resiliency" including "mastery," "relatedness," and "emotional reactivity." Several stages of scale…

Inquiry engagement is a newly defined construct that represents the participation in carrying out practices of science and engineering to achieve learning outcomes and is influenced by learners' personalities and teachers' roles. Expectancy value theory posits that attainment values are important components of task values that, in turn, directly…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explain critical factors affecting student satisfaction levels in selected state universities in Sri Lanka. Design/methodology/approach: The study has applied an quantitative survey design guided by six hypotheses. A conceptual framework has been developed to address the research questions on the basis of a…

The development of valid and reliable strategies to efficiently determine the knowledge landscape of introductory astronomy college students is an effort of great interest to the astronomy education community. This study examines individual item response rates from a widely used conceptual understanding survey, the Test Of Astronomy Standards…

Socially accountable health curricula, designed to decrease Aboriginal health inequities through the transformation of health professional students into culturally safe practitioners, has become a focal point for health professional programmes. Despite this inclusion in health curricula there remains the question of how to best assess students in…

During emerging adulthood, young people begin the process of balancing individual and relational role commitments. Whereas development within specific domains, primarily career and relationship (work and love), have been explored separately, it is important to understand how emerging adults divide their attention across multiple individual (i.e.,…

Individual differences in second language acquisition (SLA) encompass differences in working memory capacity, which is believed to be one of the most crucial factors influencing language learning. However, in Poland research on the role of working memory in SLA is scarce due to a lack of proper Polish instruments for measuring this construct. The…

This article analyses the construct validity of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme's Theory of Knowledge course in the light of claims that it is a course in critical thinking. After discussion around critical thinking--what it is and why it is valuable educationally--the article analyses the extent to which the course aims,…

The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to introduce a conceptual model for assessing undergraduate students' integrated information and communication technology (ICT) literacy capacity that involves 12 items generated from the modified version of the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) questionnaire (Coates, 2010); second, to…

Quantitative literacy (QLT) represents an underlying higher-order construct that accounts for a person's willingness to engage in quantitative situations in everyday life. The purpose of this study is to retest the construct validity of a model of quantitative literacy (Wilkins, 2010). In this model, QLT represents a second-order factor that…

Measuring students' conceptual understandings has become increasingly important to biology faculty members involved in evaluating and improving departmental programs. We developed the Molecular Biology Capstone Assessment (MBCA) to gauge comprehension of fundamental concepts in molecular and cell biology and the ability to apply these concepts in…

This study determines the fine-grained bottom-up linguistic features involved in successful second language (L2) English academic group oral tutorial discussion through the use of a spoken learner corpus composed of more than 20 hrs of L2 production. Student performances were graded by teacher-raters using a can-do rating scale, which assessed…