An instrument developed in the United States by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assess HIV/AIDS knowledge and four attitudinal dimensions (Peer Pressure, Abstinence, Drug Use, and Threat of HIV Infection) and an instrument developed by Basen-Engquist et al. (1999) to measure abstinence and condom use were translated,…

The authors describe various methods of measuring a principal's leadership behavior. They have developed a new survey instrument that can be used to analyze the leadership behavior/style of a principal. The instrument consists of 49 positive and negative behaviors that measure how a principal interacts with staff in the following five leadership…

The present study contributes to knowledge of the construct validity of the short form of the Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (and by extension, given their similar content and psychometric properties, to the long form). The authors' research involves: (1) examining the psychometric properties of the TSES on a large sample of elementary, middle,…

The "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) Act has made schools accountable for assuring adequate yearly progress of students. Therefore, it has become critical to identify school-level variables that can be controlled to affect student achievement, especially given that, thus far, most school reform efforts have failed to significantly affect…

Educators and therapists implement assistive technology to maximize educational outcomes of students with disabilities. However, few measure the outcomes of interventions because of a lack of valid measurement tools. This study investigated whether an assistive technology supplement for the School Function Assessment demonstrates an important…

The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) are a series of fluency-based measures designed to assess early literacy skills. These fluency-based measures function as predictors of future reading performance and target critical component skills required to learn to read. This study was conducted to establish the convergent…

Objective: To develop a reliable and valid parent-report screening instrument for mania, based on DSM-IV symptoms. Method: A 21-item Child Mania Rating Scale-Parent version (CMRS-P) was completed by parents of 150 children (42.3% female) ages 10.3 plus or minus 2.9 years (healthy controls = 50; bipolar disorder = 50;…

The idea that validity should be considered a property of inferences, rather than of assessments, has developed slowly over the past century. In early writings about the validity of educational assessments, validity was defined as a property of an assessment. The most common definition was that an assessment was valid to the extent that it…

It has been reasonably well established that test takers can sometimes answer correctly some reading comprehension passages without reading the passages on which the questions are based. This issue was studied with the new Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) in a study designed to determine the strategies by which examinees are able to achieve…

Administration of the Test of Spoken English (TSE) yields tapes of oral performance on items within six sections of the test. Trained scorers subsequently rate responses using four proficiency scales: pronunciation, grammar, fluency, and overall comprehensibility. This project examined the consistency of statistical relations among TSE scores with…

A study refined a valid and reliable measure to measure learner empowerment and determined construct validity by correlating learner empowerment with the related variables affinity-seeking (an interpersonal communication construct), motivation to study, and learning. Subjects, 340 undergraduate students enrolled in communication classes at a…

The present investigation extends the factor analytic approach pioneered by Fleishman (1964), incorporating subsequent developments in the application of confirmatory factor analysis and the physical fitness literature (e.g., an emphasis on maximum oxygen intake). More specifically, the ability of an a priori factor structure of physical fitness…

This study evaluated the construct validity of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Third Edition (WISC-III) with children (ages 8 to 13) having learning disabilities who were either Hispanic (N=120) or Non-Hispanic white (N=120). Factor analyses found that the WISC III has a three factor structure consisting of verbal comprehension,…

Factor analysis of the instrument used to evaluate student perceptions of an educational interactive video program has determined that seven constructs were being measured. All of these constructs, however, were not consistently measuring the same things. In fact, the variables on which the factors loaded changed for three of the factors from…

This study investigated the validity of measures derived from a large-scale multiple-choice achievement test in mathematics, using evidence from introspective think-aloud protocols of students as they attempted test items. A small-scale study of 21 local high-school students was conducted to identify and describe cognitive processes underlying…