Faculty and students may benefit from using a well-designed instrument to meet the objectives of both institutional assessment requirements and direct student learning in the discipline. This paper discusses how accounting rubrics can be used to evaluate and assess student learning by providing an organized approach to determine student success on…

Engagement is one of the most widely misused and overgeneralized constructs found in the educational, learning, instructional, and psychological sciences. The articles in this special issue represent a wide range of traditions and highlight several key conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and analytical issues related to defining and measuring…

The authors encourage those in the field of school psychology to consider the use of learning disabilities assessment practices in relation to specific American Psychological Association and National Association of School Psychologists ethical codes and in regard to the American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association,…

This study explored motivation and engagement among North American (the United States and Canada; n = 1,540), U.K. (n = 1,558), Australian (n = 2,283), and Chinese (n = 3,753) secondary school students. Motivation and engagement were assessed via students' responses to the Motivation and Engagement Scale-High School (MES-HS). Confirmatory factor…

Today, nearly forty years after writing centers first began to proliferate, it is worthwhile to reflect on the themes that emerge from empirical material surrounding writing center assessments, for reflecting on these themes may help administrators to refine current assessment practices and scholars to redirect their research. The goal of this…

This article summarizes critical evaluation needs, challenges, and lessons learned in translational research. Evaluation can play a key role in enhancing successful application of research-based programs and tools as well as informing program refinement and future research. Discussion centers on what is unique about evaluating programs and…

Treatment integrity (also referred to as "treatment fidelity," "intervention integrity," and "procedural reliability") is an important methodological concerning both research and practice because treatment integrity data are essential to making valid conclusions regarding treatment outcomes. Despite its relationship to validity, treatment…

Construct validation theory is founded upon conflicting metaphysical principles, methodological approaches, and standards of adequacy. This paper explores these unrecognized conflicts and indicates some consequences that these conflicts have for construct validation theory. (Author/PN)

This special series focused on treatment integrity in the child mental health and education field is timely. The articles do a laudable job of reviewing (a) the current status of treatment integrity research and measurement, (b) existing conceptual models of treatment integrity, and (c) the limitations of prior research. Overall, this thoughtful…

The author argues that one of the worst aspects of logical positivism is its attempt to construct a value-free science and to exclude values from the scientific process. (Author/PN)

The author feels that the stakeholder approach unavoidably pushes the evaluation toward technical compromises and accommodations that diminish the long-term gains in knowledge. (PN)

The case history explains the techniques used to introduce research methodology into a service agency for the visually handicapped. (BD)

Methodological incarceration occurs when research and investigation are restricted by the traditional concepts of how a study should be designed and are hampered by those notions which dictate what research is. This paper examines several reasons why social science research in general--reading research in particular--is considered by some to be…

An introduction to profiles is presented with examples provided to permit an overall appraisal of the potential of profiles, of the principles upon which they might be based, and of the problems that will have to be overcome if their potential is to be realized in practice. The larger scale examples of profiles discussed are the Scottish Pupil…

This paper presents the author's responses to nine questions addressed to the standard-setting symposium participants. A central theme in this assessment is that one cannot clearly demonstrate, a priori, that either a normative or a content-referenced approach is superior. Most methods used to date have been insufficiently grounded in…