Multidimensionality and hierarchical data structure are common in assessment data. These design features, if not accounted for, can threaten the validity of the results and inferences generated from factor analysis, a method frequently employed to assess test dimensionality. In this article, we describe and demonstrate the application of the…

Emotion regulation is a central feature in human emotional development. However, measures based on children's observable emotion regulation behaviors are largely absent. An inventory of children's emotion regulation strategies was developed from current measures and four focus group discussions with experts in child behavior and emotion. From…

The underlying factor structure of the Learning Experiences Questionnaire (LEQ; Schaub, 2004) was examined using data from 742 male and female college-age respondents. The LEQ items reflect a variety of learning experiences (generated based on Bandura's (1986, 1997) four sources of self-efficacy perceptions) that might occur in each of Holland's…

The aim of the research presented here is the use of extensions of longitudinal item response theory (IRT) models in the analysis and comparison of group-specific growth in large-scale assessments of educational outcomes. A general discrete latent variable model was used to specify and compare two types of multidimensional item-response-theory…

This study investigated the application of multidimensional item response theory (IRT) models to validate test structure and dimensionality. Multiple content areas or domains within a single subject often exist in large-scale achievement tests. Such areas or domains may cause multidimensionality or local item dependence, which both violate the…

We explored the perceptual structure of facial expressions of six basic emotions, varying systematically in intensity, in adults and children aged 7 and 14 years. Multidimensional scaling suggested that three- or four-dimensional structures were optimal for all groups. Two groups of adults demonstrated nearly identical structure, which had…

Motivated by Gibbons et al.'s (Appl. Psychol. Meas. 31:4-19, "2007") full-information maximum marginal likelihood item bifactor analysis for polytomous data, and Rijmen, Vansteelandt, and De Boeck's (Psychometrika 73:167-182, "2008") work on constructing computationally efficient estimation algorithms for latent variable…

The common approach to scaling, according to Christopher Dede, a professor of learning technologies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is to jump in and say, "Let's go out and find more money, recruit more participants, hire more people. Let's just keep doing the same thing, bigger and bigger." That, he observes, "tends to…

In this study, the authors investigated the extent to which factor and spatial structures of leisure interests (a) are similar to or distinct from the structure of vocational interests and (b) differ across 3 cohorts: college students (M[subscript age] = 19.6 years, SD = 1.23), working-age adults (M[subscript age] = 29.7, SD = 1.18), and retirees…

We examined autonomic physiological responses induced by six different cognitive ability tasks, varying in complexity, that were selected on the basis of on Guilford's Structure of Intellect model. In a group of 52 participants, task performance was measured together with nine different autonomic response measures and respiration rate. Weighted…

Prior to a three-way component analysis of a three-way data set, it is customary to preprocess the data by centering and/or rescaling them. Harshman and Lundy (1984) considered that three-way data actually consist of a three-way model part, which in fact pertains to ratio scale measurements, as well as additive "offset" terms that turn the ratio…

Applied multidimensional scaling to similarity data to produce a model of Attachment Q-Set (AQS) items as points in a 3-dimensional space. Represented criterion sorts, individual Q-sorts, and empirical correlates as vectors, interpreting each according to the vector's contributions from the three global dimensions. Tested the model's validity and…

Evaluation of multidimensional measures of community adjustment in 239 young adults with mild to severe mental retardation resulted in development of a cross-validated model which found such broad dimensions of community adjustment as social network integration, recreation leisure integration, community and economic integration, and need for…