The Mindset Assessment Profile is a popular questionnaire purportedly designed to measure mindset--an individual's belief in whether intelligence is malleable or stable. Despite its widespread use, the questionnaire appears to assess an individual's need for cognition and goal orientation more than mindset. We assessed the reliability, construct…

Distractor-driven multiple-choice assessment items and Rasch modeling were used as diagnostic tools to investigate students' understanding of middle school chemistry ideas. Ninety-one items were developed according to a procedure that ensured content alignment to the targeted standards and construct validity. The items were administered to 13360…

Context: Evolution from novice to expert is associated with the development of expert-type knowledge structure. The objectives of this study were to examine reliability and validity of concept sorting (ConSort[C]) as a measure of static knowledge structure and to determine the relationship between concepts in static knowledge structure and…

Research in the UK has shown that students start their university career with the goal of mastering their subject, but this focus shifts as they progress through their degree program. Studies have suggested that unlike students in the UK, Russian students continue to take a strong mastery approach to their work. The main aim of this study was to…

Based on reanalyses of correlational data obtained from the University of Southern California Aptitudes Research Project, this investigation examined the extent to which two higher order factors of semantic content and symbolic content form Guilford's structure-of-intellect model reflected distinct constructs. (Author/LMO)

A factor analysis study provided empirical evidence of the validity of the modified Mathematics Self-Efficacy Scale (MSES) and its three subscales: mathematics problems self-efficacy, mathematics tasks self-efficacy, and college courses self-efficacy. The MSES was administered to 522 undergraduate students from three state universities and…

Evaluation of Israeli students, 392 in grades 7-9 and 381 in grades 10-12, in the domain of literature supported the construct validity of the 4 X 4 Structure of Giftedness Model, in which giftedness is conceptualized in 4 categories of general and specific intellectual ability and original thinking and 4 ordered ability levels embedded in a…

Reviews new conceptions of cognitive and conative aptitude, learning, development, and achievement and their assessment. Argues that different purposes for educational assessment require different levels and models of assessment. Strongly suggests research on construct validity and teacher understanding and use of assessment. (FMW)

There have been few discoveries in geology more important than "deep time"--the understanding that the universe has existed for countless millennia, such that man's existence is confined to the last milliseconds of the metaphorical geological clock. The influence of deep time is felt in a variety of sciences including geology, cosmology,…