A discussion of language testing in the context of a program in English for Special Purposes (ESP) focuses on the lack of "fit" between the two areas and makes some recommendations for improvement. It begins with overviews of recent trends in testing and recent issues in ESP. Overlap is seen in two areas: construct and content validity. It is…

Focusing on how the definition and assessment of quality day care are culturally specific, this paper reviews the development and validity of the Child Care Facility Schedule (CCFS), a procedure for assessing quality in child care settings in many countries. This project was initiated by the Division of Mental Health of the World Health…

This study was conducted to determine how well the Degrees of Reading Power (DRP) correctly identifies children who are experiencing reading difficulties and to describe more precisely the characteristics of children who have been identified as poor readers so that program planners can design more effective remedial instruction. The DRP and…

A statistical analysis was performed on the Charles F. Kettering (CFK) Scale, a popular four-section measure of school climate. The study centered on a multivariate analysis of Part A, the General Climate Factors section of the instrument, using data gathered from several elementary, junior high, and high school campuses in a large school district…

Valid interpretation of test scores is the shared responsibility of the test designer and the test user. Test publishers must provide evidence of the validity of the decisions their tests are intended to support, while test users are responsible for analyzing this evidence and subsequently using the test in the manner indicated by the publisher.…

What a multivariate contrast analysis should entail and how such an analysis should be conducted are discussed. The three questions encompassing a contrast analysis are: (1) whether the contrast effects are generalizable; (2) which variables contribute most to the contrast effects; and (3) what is the construct underlying the contrast effects.…

The Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ) is a self-report, Likert-type scale consisting of 67 statements that allude to various aspects of the experience of adjusting to college. The SACQ yields five indices: a full-scale score and subscale scores for each of four aspects of adjustment to college (academic adjustment, social…

The Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS) is the most widely used instrument for measuring the tactics used by members of a family in a conflict situation. It is intended to measure the extent to which family members use reasoning, verbal aggression, and physical aggression. Focus is on: (1) bringing together and evaluating criticisms of the CTS so that…

A scale developed to aid in investigation of students' perceived control at school is described, and data on its reliability, validity, and factor structure are reported. Findings reported indicate the usefulness of the perceived control scale by summarizing data from several studies. (Author/LMO)

The factorial structure of the Rotter Internal-External (IE) scale was examined. While there was strong evidence against the unidimensionality of the Rotter scale, the findings suggested that the first-order factors do define a single higher-order construct that may represent the generalized IE construct. (Author/LMO)

Job training has become an important aspect of an employee's overall job experience. However, it is not often called out specifically on instruments measuring job satisfaction. This technical manual details the processes used in the development and validation of a survey instrument to measure job training satisfaction and overall job…

This study revised the Teacher Beliefs Survey (S. Wooley and A. Wooley, 1999; TBS), an instrument to assess teachers beliefs related to constructivist and behaviorist theories of learning, and then studied the validity of the revised TBS. Drawing on a literature review, researchers added items for the existing constructs of the TBS and added a new…

A case study investigated the writing strategies use by high ability seventh graders (n=4) responding to explanatory tasks from the Maryland Writing Test (MWT), a state-mandated writing assessment. Central questions were: (1) what are the writing strategies elicited by the MWT?; (2) what evidence is revealed of participants' self-monitoring…

The Coping with Disability Scales (CDS) (J. Perry and E. Bard, 1992) was developed to provide a social-emotional assessment specific to disabilities. This report provides a preliminary test of construct validity for a Resilience Profile from the Parent Rating Scale of the CDS through factor analysis, focusing on three subdomains: (1) Disability…

In the year 2000, the Alaska High School Graduation Qualifying Examination (HSGQE) was given for the first time. The HSGQE is currently scheduled to be a graduation requirement for all students graduating as of January 2002, but early results from the use of the HSGQE in the Anchorage school district raise serious questions about the use of the…