Students' uses of metacognitive reading strategies are an important part of effective learning during university studies. Universities may place varied emphasis on the use of different strategy types, and the students employ them accordingly. A purpose of this study was to examine the use of analytic and pragmatic reading strategies by university…

Through the development and field testing of an instrument designed to measure youth social capital in the context of postsecondary transitions, this research addresses the need for theory-driven measures of social capital among youth. The results offer preliminary evidence that dimensions of youth social capital, including network structure and…

The primary purpose of this study was to collect evidence on the construct validity of grit using convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity principles. To accomplish this purpose and extend previous research on grit, college students from two schools completed an instrument comprised of a cognitive ability test, and a questionnaire. The…

The first-year grade point average (FYGPA) is the predominant measure of student success in most studies on university admission. Previous cognitive achievements measured with high school grades or standardized tests have been found to be the strongest predictors of FYGPA. For this reason, standardized tests measuring cognitive achievement are…

This study presents a survey developed to measure the skills of entering college freshmen in the areas of responsibility, motivation, study habits, literacy, and stress management, and explores the predictive power of this survey as a measure of academic performance during the first semester of college. The survey was completed by 334 incoming…

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) Benchmarks has emerged as a competing paradigm for assessing institutional effectiveness vis-a-vis the U.S. News & World Report. However, Porter (2009) has critiqued it for failing to meet validity and reliability standards. This study investigated whether the NSSE five benchmarks had construct…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between academic achievement and parenting styles among Saudi college students. The participants in this study consisted of 349 male and 219 female college students, whose age ranged from 18-25 years. The instruments for the current study were: (a) an Arabic translation of the Revised Parental…

The primary objective of this study was to compare the individual teacher interview scores from the Interactive Computer Interview System (ICIS) with their students' responses to "The Steps to Excellence Student Questionnaire". Specifically, the study examined the correlation among the teacher interviews across four themes of the ICIS ("Knowledge…

The reliability and validity of E. D. Hirsch's (1988) Cultural Literacy Test (CLT) was studied with 150 first-year college students at the University of St. Thomas in Houston (Texas). The test appears reliable, with a split-half reliability estimate of 0.93, and the cultural literacy construct and the CLT are valid. (SLD)

The relationship among Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) results, high school grade point average (GPA), socioeconomic variables, and placement test scores was examined. Participants were 162 freshmen studies students from an urban university. Results of zero-order correlations indicated that the construct validity of the placement skills test used…

This study investigated the cross-cultural construct validity of perfectionism using the Almost Perfect Scale-Revised (APS-R; R. B. Slaney, M. Mobley, J. Trippi, J. S. Ashby, & D. G. Johnson, 1996) with 251 African American college students. A LISREL confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) offered support for the 3 subscales of the APS-R: High…

Presented at the Annual National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) in New York in March 2008. This presentation explores how different item weighting can affect the effective weights, validity coefficents and test reliability of composite scores among test takers.