The Remote Associates Test (RAT; Mednick, 1962; Mednick & Mednick, 1967) is a commonly employed test of creative convergent thinking. The RAT is scored with a dichotomous scoring, scoring correct answers as 1 and all other answers as 0. Based on recent research into the information processing underlying RAT performance, we argued that the…

As illuminated forcefully by Professor Newton's provocative analytical and historical excursion, as long as tests are employed to practical ends (prediction, selection, etc.) there is little cause for the metatheoretic angst that occasions rounds of papers on the topic of validity. But then, also, there seems little need, within this context of…

Paul E. Newton's article on the consensus definition of validity tackles a number of big issues and makes a number of strong claims. I agreed with much of what he said, and I disagreed with a number of his claims, but I found his article to be consistently interesting and thought provoking (whether I agreed or not). I will focus on three general…

The notion of validity in the social sciences is evolving and is influenced by philosophy of science, critiques of objectivity, and epistemological debates. Methodology for validation of the knowledge claims is diverse across different philosophies of science. In other words, definition and the way to establish of validity have evolved as…

The aim of this work is to analyze the dimensional structure of the Spanish version of the School and College Ability Test, employed in the process for the identification of students with high intellectual abilities. This test measures verbal and mathematical (or quantitative) abilities at three levels of difficulty: elementary (3rd, 4th, and 5th…

Validity is a central principle of assessment relating to the appropriateness of the uses and interpretations of test results. Usually, one of the inferences that we wish to make is that the score reflects the extent of a student's learning in a given domain. Thus, it is important to establish that the assessment tasks elicit performances that…

Research indicates that many elementary students do not comprehend that the equal sign is an indication that an equality relation exists between two structures. Instead, they perceive the equal sign as an indication that a particular procedure is to be performed. As students mature, and as their exposure to the equal sign and equality relations in…

Test score validity takes center stage in the debate over the use of high school exit exams. Scant literature addresses the amount of conditional standard error of measurement (CSEM) present in individual student results on high school exit exams. The purpose of this study is to fill a void in the literature and add a national review of the CSEM,…