Although higher education institutions dislike rankings published in the mass media, they like the attention the rankings create and prefer to be included rather than excluded. Common criticisms of the methodology include emphasis on inappropriate criteria, unfair comparison of private and public institutions, faulty assumptions, inaccurate data,…

Dependability of the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) was studied using both generalizability and classical test score analyses with a sample of 164 elementary school students. Results suggest that sources of error variance interact to decrease dependability of CDI scores. Depression in children might be better assessed through multiple…

Examines and compares the characteristics of four computer attitude scales: (1) Stevens'"Computer Survey"; (2) Reece and Gable's "Attitudes toward Computers"; (3) Gressard and Loyd's "Computer Attitude Scale"; and (4) Griswold's "Computer Use Questionnaire." Attitudes toward computer scales are examined, and…

A study compared evaluations of undergraduate students' oral presentations by groups of peers and faculty teams. Students (n=210), in assessment teams, rated quality of content and presentation using a 22-point guide. Comparison of peer and faculty scores showed no significant difference in averages but did show significant differences in standard…

This article explores selected phonological measures, their relationships to one another, and how groups differentiated by such measures change over time during intervention. Relationships among global quantitative measures of severity (percent consonants correct), measures of variability/consistency, and measures of whole-word complexity and…

The approximate degrees of freedom Welch-James (WJ) and Brown-Forsythe (BF) procedures for testing within-subjects effects in multivariate groups by trials repeated measures designs were investigated under departures from covariance homogeneity and normality. Empirical Type I error and power rates were obtained for least-squares estimators and…

This paper describes the adaptation of the Career Planning and Career Exploration scales of the Career Development Inventory-Australia for use in a Thai cultural context. One hundred and fifty-nine Thai high school students participated in the study. The results were compared with data from Australian students collected in earlier studies and from…

Evaluation of environmental education (EE) interventions is at an early stage of development. Within a quantitative paradigm, the authors examined the psychometric properties of the Children's Environmental Attitudes and Knowledge Scale (CHEAKS) with data from a sample of Irish adolescents (N = 338) participating in a repeated measures design.…

This paper compares the advantages of a strength-based perspective to the long-standing pathology-based approach to assessment. Theoretical advantages to strength-based assessment, such as greater compatibility with early prevention efforts and increased acceptance by multiple stakeholders, are suggested. The "Devereux Early Childhood Assessment"…

The present study had three purposes. The first was to further explore the psychometric properties of the Preferred Thinking Styles in Teaching Inventory [Zhang, L. F. (2003). "The preferred thinking styles in teaching inventory." Unpublished test. The University of Hong Kong: Hong Kong]. The second was to test the hypothesis that the…

Recently, there has been a significant expansion in the use of performance assessment in large scale testing programs. Although there has been significant support from curriculum and policy stakeholders, the technical feasibility of large scale performance assessments has remained a question. This report is intended to contribute to the debate by…

To generalize test results beyond the particular test administration, an examinee's ability estimate must be independent of the particular items attempted, and the item difficulty calibrations must be independent of the particular sample of people attempting the items. This stability is a key concept of the Rasch model, a latent trait model of…

This paper reports on a study of the foundation and application of two procedures used to specify appropriate weights to be applied to components in determining the overall quality of a school. These procedures are multiattribute utility technology (MAUT) and policy capturing, and the paper presents the results of applying them, using key…

As part of a study of teacher evaluation of student replies to open-ended questions, a second question--the best method of determining interrater reliability--was examined. The standard method, the Pearson Product-Moment correlation, overestimated the degree of match between researchers' and teachers' scoring of tests. The simpler percent…

This study examined efficacy of different story collection procedures with normally developing (N=10) and language disordered (N=6) preschool children. Factor analyses probed such possible interfering factors as home vs. school environments, familiarity of the story requester, coaxing cues, stimulus structure, and presence of such props as dolls…