Many statistical models have been used to study human development. The multidimensional scaling (MDS) method has been an under-utilised technique in psychological and educational research for studying such phenomena. In this paper, MDS profile analysis was used to examine adolescent mood change patterns over a 1-week period. This method is used to…

This study examines how mathematics and science teachers' classroom assessment practices were affected by the National Board Certification process. Using a 3-year, longitudinal, comparison group design, evidence of changes in teachers' classroom practice were measured on six dimensions of formative assessment. The National Board candidates began…

Five married couples in counseling and five couples not in counseling rated family members on 25 attribute scales. Analyzed similarities derived from ratings through ordinal Euclidian multidimensional scaling, yielding family structure maps. Maps revealed that counseling subjects saw themselves as less similar to spouses and saw need for spousal…

Describes content-validity theory and illustrates new and traditional approaches for conducting content-validity studies. Newer approaches are based on multidimensional scaling analysis of item-similarity ratings, while traditional approaches are based on ratings of item-objective congruence and relevance. (Author/SLD)

Despite several decades of activity, alcohol expectancy research has yet to merge measurement approaches with developing memory theory. This article offers an expectancy assessment approach built on a conceptualization of expectancy as an information processing network. The authors began with multidimensional scaling models of expectancy space,…

The emergence of theory-driven evaluation has drawn attention to the need for practical ways for evaluators to construct program theory to achieve the benefits of the approach. This article illustrates the use of concept mapping as a technique to explicate underlying program theory in the context of family support programs. In this example, 29…

Although there are many methods available for dimensionality assessment for items with monotone item response functions, there are few methods available for unfolding item response theory models. In this study, a modification of Yen's Q3 statistic is proposed for the case of these nonmonotone item response models. Through a simulation study, the…

This paper begins by reviewing some of the different models of third-party observation of university teaching that can be found in the literature. Having analysed these, it argues that--if "peer" is taken to indicate equality of status--only one is genuinely a model of peer-observation. It proposes an alternative categorisation of third-party…

In many cross-cultural research studies, assessment instruments are translated or adapted for use in multiple languages. However, it cannot be assumed that different language versions of an assessment are equivalent across languages. A fundamental issue to be addressed is the comparability or equivalence of the construct measured by each language…

A free-response method of data collection (questionnaires), in conjunction with nonmetric multidimensional scaling, produced results highly similar to those of a previous study, i.e., that an effective college teacher could be characterized in terms of "research,""teaching," and "service to the university." (Author/RC)

Multidimensional scaling (MDS) and Pathfinder techniques for assessing changes in the structural representation of a knowledge domain were studied with relatedness ratings collected from 72 Spanish college students. Comparison of student and expert similarity measures indicate that MDS and graph theoretic approaches are valid techniques. (SLD)

In this paper I describe and illustrate the Roussos-Stout (1996) multidimensionality-based DIF analysis paradigm, with emphasis on its implication for the selection of a matching and studied subtest for DIF analyses. Standard DIF practice encourages an exploratory search for matching subtest items based on purely statistical criteria, such as a…

Twenty-five HIV-negative late adolescents (13 women and 12 men) who had lost a parent to AIDS generated vignettes in which the characters were deciding whether to use a condom (condom scripts). Two clinically trained judges rated the interpersonal tone of the condom scripts on 17 semantic differential scales. Three other clinically trained raters…

Illustrated is the power of multidimensional scaling in reducing a complex set of proximity measures to a simple geometric picture that shows the relationship among data objects. Methods are discussed for determining the number of dimensions needed to represent a set. (Author/DEP)

The present study examined three different methods of data collection in which subjects judged proximity between object pairs. One method required subjects to partition objects into homogeneous subsets; the second entailed rating object pairs on a similarity-dissimilarity continuum; and the third involved comparing inter-object proximities to a…