Background: The ComFor (Forerunners in Communication) is an instrument to explore underlying competence for augmentative communication. More specifically, it measures perception and sense-making of non-transient forms of communication at the levels of presentation and representation. The target group consists primarily of individuals with autism…

Recent estimates of Shaken Baby Syndrome awareness suggest that approximately half of all American adults have not heard of the often devastating risks of shaking an infant. Using a sample of 288 undergraduate students, we developed a measure of attitudes around infant care practices. A total of 264 community participants completed a revised…

Reliability and validity of the Symptom Checklist 90 Revised (SCL-90-R) was investigated to determine if this instrument is appropriate for use with Hispanic college students. The sample (28 males, 177 females) consisted of 101 participants who identified as Anglo and 104 who identified as Hispanic (6 did not identify their ethnicity).…

This study examines the reliability and validity of translation tests as a reading comprehension measure. The following tests were administered to 70 Japanese high school students: (1) open-ended translation (OE-TRAN) test from English to Japanese; (2) multiple-choice translation (MC-TRAN) test; (3) cloze test (CLOZE-T); and (4) short-answer…

The Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) is a functional assessment used in approximately 27 states to evaluate youth service outcomes. The CANS purports to measure both the youth's risk and protective factors, but its validity is largely un-researched. This study compares ratings of 304 delinquent youth on the CANS and ratings on a…

Cultural competence has become a central social work tenet enshrined in the profession's ethical and educational standards. Few measures of cultural competence exist, however, in spite of an increasing array of religious, ethnic, and racial groups in U.S. society. This article develops a new measure to assess cultural competence among one family…

Most seasoned test developers recognize the importance of thoughtful decision making when constructing a test. Unfortunately, many classroom achievement tests are created by novice test developed who have not received sufficient instruction in item writing (G. Gulliksen, 1986; R. J. Stiggins, 1991). The result is often a test that is poorly…

The reliability of the Writing Skills Assessment Test (WSAT) given to all entering freshmen at the City University of New York (CUNY) is the subject of this monograph. The monograph states that although the WSAT is scored according to validated and widely-used holistic procedures, some CUNY faculty had expressed concern about aspects of the WSAT's…

This paper reviews the literatuare on projective techniques of personality assessment and their use by school psychologists. Following a brief survey of the development of projective techniques, several of the most widely used techniques are briefly discussed, i.e., the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), the Childrens Apperception Test (CAT), the…

A project was conducted to establish the validity of a procedure and set of instruments to facilitate a more systematic approach for the continued staff development of inservice secondary and postsecondary vocational instructors in three states (Kentucky, Virginia, and Wisconsin) with different delivery systems. The population consisted of a…

The purposes of this study were to establish the interrater reliability, dimensionality, and internal consistency of an instruction evaluation instrument used at The University of Michigan Medical School. Using the nine-item rating scale, 1,758 student ratings and 88 staff ratings were gathered on 61 faculty. Interrater agreement ranged from .28…

Approximately 300 elementary and secondary school teachers from across the United States responded to a survey concerning their attitudes toward the role and the performance of reading specialists in their schools. The teachers completed a 30-item Likert-like attitude scale and provided demographic data. The results indicated that teachers in…

A STUDY OF FIVE DIFFERENT ESSAY EVALUATION PROCEDURES WAS CONDUCTED TO DETERMINE THE INTRARELIABILITY OF EACH AND TO USE THESE RELIABILITY SCORES AS A BASIS FOR COMPARING THE FIVE PROCEDURES. TEN THEMES WERE ASSIGNED TO FIVE RATING GROUPS, EACH USING A DIFFERENT EVALUATION PROCEDURE--(1) THE CALIFORNIA ESSAY SCALE, (2) THE CLEVELAND COMPOSITION…

The College Outcome Measures Project (COMP) was established to develop, validate, and implement measures of the knowledge and skills that undergraduate students are expected to acquire and that are important to effective adult functioning. The COMP Measurement Battery yields a "communicating" score based in part on a speaking assessment…

The document presents the final report of a project to develop and validate a three-phase system of individualized criterion-referenced assessment instruments to provide professional decision makers with reliable information regarding a mentally handicapped person's skill level at different stages of normalization training. An overview of…