For autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in adults there are several diagnostic instruments available with a need for consideration of the psychometric properties. This study aimed to conduct a first psychometric evaluation of a new diagnostic ASD instrument, the NIDA (Dutch Interview for Diagnostic assessment of ASD in adults) in 90 adult males without…

The purpose of the study reported here was to observe the effects of examination practices on the extent to which university students procrastinate. These examination practices were: (1) limiting the number of resits, (2) compensatory rather than conjunctive decision-making about student progress, and (3) restricting the time available for…

To gain further insight into psychosexual functioning, including behaviors, intrapersonal and interpersonal aspects, in adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), comprehensive, multi-informant measures are needed. This study describes (1) the development of a new measure of psychosexual functioning in both parent- and self-reports (Teen…

In this study, we investigated how empirical indicators of test-taking engagement can be defined, empirically validated, and used to describe group differences in the context of the Programme of International Assessment of Adult Competences (PIAAC). The approach was to distinguish between disengaged and engaged response behavior by means of…

Considering scoring validity as encompassing both reliable rating scale use and valid descriptor interpretation, this study reports on the validation of a CEFR-based scale that was co-constructed and used by novice raters. The research questions this paper wishes to answer are (a) whether it is possible to construct a CEFR-based rating scale with…

Purpose: This study describes the development and validation of the Group Climate Instrument for Children aged 8 to 15 years (GCIC 8-15), which purports to measure the quality of group climate in residential care. Methods: A confirmatory factor analysis was performed on data of 117 children in Dutch residential youth care. Reliability analysis was…

This study examines whether the Communities That Care (CTC) prevention system influences targeted risk and protective factors and the subsequent development of problem behaviour among adolescents (12-18 years) in the Netherlands. In this quasi-experimental study of ten communities (five experimental, five control), adolescent outcomes were…

In this paper we report on the development of an inventory that measures global citizenship among adolescents. The methodology used consists of cognitive interviews for questionnaire design and explorative and confirmatory factor analyses among several datasets. The resulting Global Citizenship Inventory (GCI) includes a global citizenship…

This study reports on the development and validation of an abridged version of the 50-item Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ), a self-report measure of autistic traits. We aimed to reduce the number of items whilst retaining high validity and a meaningful factor structure. The item reduction procedure was performed on data from 1,263 Dutch students and…

This article describes the system ProofWeb developed for teaching logic to undergraduate computer science students. The system is based on the higher order proof assistant Coq, and is made available to the students through an interactive web interface. Part of this system is a large database of logic problems. This database will also hold the…

The authors explored the utility of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) in assessing adolescents' emotion regulation. Adolescents (11-17 years; N = 870) completed the DERS and measures of externalizing and internalizing problems. Confirmatory factor analysis suggested a similar factor structure in the adolescent sample of the…

A method is presented for collecting information about the match between students' learning issues in problem-based learning and teachers' objectives. Subjects were 82 second-year medical students at the University of Limburg in Maastricht (Netherlands) in a problem-based curriculum. During a unit on pregnancy, childbirth, and child development,…

As a result of a new law passed in The Netherlands, in 2002, an increasing number of children with profound and multiple learning difficulties will attend school. The complexity of the target group requires appropriate assessment that is focused on programme planning. A new instrument, the "Checklist of child characteristics," has been…

The present studies were conducted to investigate students' conceptions of distinct constructivist assumptions. To that end, a questionnaire was developed containing statements about four constructivist assumptions: The importance of knowledge construction, cooperative learning, self-regulation, and the use of authentic problems together with…

Examines problem-based small-group discussions and describes a study conducted in The Netherlands that investigated the thoughts of students, both content-related and non-task related, through a thought sampling method. Highlights include categories of students' thoughts; validity measures; and results of student questionnaires. (LRW)