This study investigated the responses of 531 preservice teachers to a "Beliefs About Assessment" questionnaire in China. The questionnaire focused on understanding the purposes, practices and principles of assessment for and of learning. Using factor analysis, an inter-correlated two-order model fitted well to the responses. This model…

This cross-cultural study investigated the relationship between attitudes toward statistics (ATS) and course achievement (CA) among Japanese college students. The sample consisted of 135 male and 134 female students from the first two-year liberal arts program of a four-year college in Tokyo, Japan. Attitudes about statistics were measured using…

The study discussed the importance of test validity, often established when making decisions that may affect a student's future. The decisions made by policymakers and educators must not adversely affect any particular subgroups of students (i.e., year of administration, gender, ethnicity, level English proficiency, socioeconomic status, and…

This comprehensive "Handbook" focuses on the most used polytomous item response theory (IRT) models. These models help us understand the interaction between examinees and test questions where the questions have various response categories. The book reviews all of the major models and includes discussions about how and where the models…

Based on the observation that scale-level methods are sometimes exclusively used to investigate measurement invariance for test translation, describes results of a simulation study investigating whether item-level differential item functioning (DIF) manifests itself in scale-level analyses such as single and multigroup factor analyses and per…

A general purpose computer program for the calculation of a matrix of tetrachoric correlations is described. This program was developed for use in adaptive (and other) testing research for examining the unidimensionality assumption in latent trait theory, in conjunction with available factor analysis programs. Several other potential applications,…

During the past decade both the Guilford and Torrence groups have developed numerable measures to assess creative potential. Many of these measures purport to evaluate "creativity" but one element seems to be lacking in each: i.e., the last of "reality-based, real world measures" which would allow relevant response tendencies…

Authors describe a measurement technique which processes item data so as to indicate logical relationships among items. (HB)

The lack of a suitable research instrument on attitudes of elementary school children toward school and subject matters has limited the quality and extent of research on school attitudes. The Affective Reporting System was conceived to fill this need. It consists of two instruments--ME and What I Like Best (WILB), each possessing two versions:…

The findings in the present study show that an understanding of subject matter tends to be more important than the forms which academic interrogation may take. Hence a solution to the problem of cultural bias seems to relate to remedial academic skills. (Author)

This paper reports the use of several quantitative analytic methods, including Rasch analysis, to re-examine teacher responses to questionnaire items probing opinions related to the compulsory numeracy tests conducted in Years 3, 5, and 7 in Queensland, Australia. Nisbet and Grimbeek (2004) previously reported an interpretable and statistically…

Since all commonly used latent trait models assume a unidimensional test, the applicability of the procedure to obviously multidimensional tests is questionable. This paper presents the results of the application of latent trait, traditional, and factor analyses to a series of actual and hypothetical tests that vary in factoral complexity.…

Two factor analytic studies of the Internal-External Control Scale, a forced-choice questionnaire, were carried out. In the first study, separate analyses for samples of male and female college students each yielded the following two factors: (1) generalized personal control, reflecting a belief about ability versus luck as a determinant of…

Factor analysis was used to summarize the interrelationships between a large and varied collection of measures. Data for 500 third grade students assigned to either an experimental or a comparison condition were obtained. The data covered scores for the first 28 items of the Student Affective Behavior Checklist, (2) 9 nonmathematics subtests of…

An experimental study examined the possibility that proximity error could bias results from semantic differential questionnaires. Proximity error occurs when, due to the ordering, or polarity, of the differential scales, one answer on the semantic differential results in another answer to a subsequent question being substantially changed from what…