Self-concept scales from the Australian Self Description Questionnaire II (SDQII) were included in the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88). Mean differences based on 17,544 U.S. responses and the Australian normative sample were small. Results support construct validity of SDQII responses in NELS:88 data. (SLD)

Articles in this special issue attempt to address the most significant aspect of certification and licensing testing programs: validity. Although construct validity has become the prevailing model, the theoretical formulation of the construct of competence remains a topic of considerable debate. (SLD)

Analysis of 30 elementary teachers' personal meaning of "intelligence" resulted in development of a three-component model: (1) acquisition performance (how much students learn), (2) retention performance (how much material students remember), and (3) utilization performance (how extensively students utilize learned material). Path analysis…

This study assessed the construct validity of the circumplex model of the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP-C) in Norwegian clinical and nonclinical samples. Structure was examined by evaluating the fit of the circumplex model to data obtained by the IIP-C. Observer-rated personality disorder criteria (DSM-IV, Axis II) were used as external…

Practical intelligence as measured by tacit-knowledge inventories generally has shown a weak relation to other intelligence constructs. However, the use of assessments capturing specialized, job-related knowledge may obscure the generality of practical intelligence and its relation to general intelligence. This article presents three studies in…

Using a multi-theory approach, the current study was designed to identify gender differences in the psychological mechanisms by which urban adolescents' motivation in physical education transfers into their leisure-time activities. The theoretical frameworks of Self-Determination Theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior were integrated to…

Community coalitions (CCs) have labored with some difficulty to demonstrate empirical evidence of effectiveness in preventing a wide range of adolescent problem behaviors. Training and technical assistance (TA) have been identified as important elements in promoting improved functioning of CCs. A reliable, valid, and inexpensive method to assess…

In this study, the ability of test development staff to predict the difficulty of analogy items was explored. The nature of the item attributes that contributed to test writers' predictions of difficulty as well as actual item difficulty was also investigated. The two expert test writers studied were quite good at predicting item difficulty. Item…

Administration of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (fourth edition) to 60 elementary school students (in grades four, five, and six) resulted in means consistent with their gifted status. Factor analyses, including LISREL confirmatory analysis, offered only partial support to the Binet model. (TJH)

Presents a model of the constructs underlying silent reading comprehension. Defines the process as consisting of three whole-parts, each of which is a part of silent reading comprehension, yet is also a whole ability that itself consists of two or more parts. Presents a system of reading diagnosis in which construct-valid measures are administered…

The present study was a psychometric evaluation of two recently revised Jungian personality instruments, the Singer-Loomis Type Deployment Inventory (SL-TDI) and the Personal Preferences Self-Description Questionnaire (PPSDQ). The study also examined the relationship between Jungian personality dimensions and the Five-Factor Model of personality…

The development of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A) scales to measure the Personality Psychopathology Five (PSY-5), a model of personality, is reported. Preliminary scales were refined with the MMPI-A normative sample of 1,620 and a clinical sample of 713 adolescents, and their construct validity was supported. (SLD)

This study measured and applied Senge's (1990) fifth discipline model of learning organizations in a culturally distinct population, namely teachers in 17 vocational high schools located in the Seoul megalopolis. The participants were 976 full-time vocational and academic teachers in public trade/industry-technical and business high schools in the…

The literature on competency-based human resource (HR) management provides a strong case for moving from a jobs-based to a competency-based approach to human resources. There is agreement in the literature (Dubois, Rothwell, Stern, & Kemp, 2004; Lucia & Lepsinger, 1999) on the benefits of using competencies throughout HR systems and impact…

The multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) design of D. T. Campbell and D. W. Fiske (1959) is the most widely used paradigm for testing construct validity, but it continues to be plagued by problems associated with definition of terms, operationalizations of their guidelines, and analytic procedures used to test them. Using five diverse MTMM data sets,…