The purpose of this article is to contribute to the discussion concerning the value and validity of fiction, and arts-based approaches more broadly, as research. I offer this contribution through a narrative: "Conference Story." The narrative involves its characters, in an Oxford pub, debating the merits and otherwise of Peter Clough's (2002)…

This article describes the development and two studies on the construct validity of the Academic Emotions Scale (AES). The AES is a French self-report questionnaire assessing six emotions in the context of school learning: enjoyment, hope, pride, anxiety, shame and frustration. Its construct validity was studied through exploratory and…

This handbook is designed as a quick reference for first-year teachers who find themselves in an assessment driven environment with little experience to help make sense of the language, underlying philosophy, or organizational structure of the assessment system. The handbook begins with advice on developing and evaluating effective learning…

One of the most salient requirements for international educational research is the use of comparable measures. For the comparison of student performance across countries the use of item response theory (IRT) scaling techniques facilitates the collection of cross-nationally comparable measures. But there is also a need for valid and comparable…

Presents an overview of the applications of microcomputer-based assessment and diagnosis for both educational and psychological placement and interventions. Advantages of computer-based assessment (CBA) over paper-based testing practices are described, the history of computer testing is reviewed, and the construct validity of computer-based tests…

The psychometric properties of the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales Survey Form were studied in a total population of children and adolescents with MR, and in the specific levels of functioning (n=826, age 4-18 years). The original division into (sub)domains, as assigned by the authors, was replicated in the total population and in the mild and…

Smith's article "On Construct Validity: Issues of Method and Measurement" is a fine tribute to L. J. Cronbach and P. E. Meehl (1955) that clarifies the current state and future directions in the understanding of construct validity. Construct validity is a dynamic process, and fit indices need to be used at the service of understanding, not in…

Describes the development of the Religious Occupations and Stress Questionnaire (ROS), which attempts to fill the need for an appropriate measure of the stress experienced by individuals in religious occupations. Results of reliability and validity studies indicate high internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity.…

Criterion and construct validation analyses support the use of both retrospective questions in lieu of a pretest and a methodological innovation to compensate for the absence of a control group in a program evaluation that calls for an unavailable experimental design. The findings obtained with this method present evidence that study abroad…

There are many threats to validity in high-stakes achievement testing. One major threat is construct-irrelevant variance (CIV). This article defines CIV in the context of the contemporary, unitary view of validity and presents logical arguments, hypotheses, and documentation for a variety of CIV sources that commonly threaten interpretations of…

The Philosophies Held by Instructors of Lifelong-learners (PHIL) was developed to identify a respondent's preference for one of the major schools of philosophical thought: Idealism, Realism, Pragmatism, Existentialism, or Reconstructionism. Using the pool of items from an established instrument, its final form and content validity were determined…

This article describes comparison group research designs and discusses how such designs can be used in school counseling research to demonstrate the effectiveness of school counselors and school counseling interventions. The article includes a review of internal and external validity constructs as they relate to this approach to research. Examples…

In this study, we (a) examined the measurement equivalence/invariance (ME/I) of the Chinese Self-Directed Search (SDS; 1994 edition) across gender and geographic regions (Mainland China vs. Hong Kong); (b) assessed the construct validity of the Chinese SDS using Widaman's (1985, 1992) MTMM framework; and (c) determined whether vocational interests…

Fifty years ago, L. J. Cronbach and P. E. Meehl (1955) advocated for the concept of construct validity, noting that psychologists study hypothetical, inferred entities and that validating measures of such entities involves basic theory testing. Three important developments in clinical assessment following that seminal article are noteworthy.…

The question of the status of cause-and-effect explanations of human behavior that posit physically existing causative factors and those that, on the other hand, posit hypothetical entities in the form of "useful fictions" has a long history. The influence of the works of Jeremy Bentham and Hans Vaihinger, as well as the later influence of Francis…