Describes an acculturation scale for Mexican Americans which can be administered in English, Spanish, or both languages; is applicable with both normal and psychiatric populations; and differentiates five distinct types of Mexican Americans based on four major factors. Includes reliability and validity data and a copy of the scale. (Author/SB)

Holland types characterizing 34 occupational groups are reported for Self-Directed Search (SDS) standard scores. Results are compared with the Holland types obtained raw scores. Results imply that SDS standard scores are more accurate than raw scores in describing the Holland types of occupational groups. (Author)

Direct observation is consistent with the multidimensional approach specified in the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. Furthermore, it is directly related to psychoeducational planning, consultation, and intervention, and it is a credible information source. (Author/CP)

Examined the psychometric properties of the Peer Nomination Inventory of Depression (PNID). Reliability proved highly acceptable. Content validity was determined by experts' judgments. Subjects with high PNID scores exhibited depressed intellectual functioning, poor social behavior, and diminished ebullience. (Author)

Examines strengths and weaknesses of several needs assessment techniques currently in use and concludes that exclusive use of any single technique will likely provide a biased or inaccurate assessment of community mental health needs. There is a critical need to empirically investigate the reliability and validity of these needs assessment…

Instruments and suggestions for evaluation of coaching staff are presented. (LH)

Data from a land-use study of small- and medium-sized towns in New Zealand are used to ascertain the relationship between official and effective density measures. It was found that the reliability of official measures of density is very low overall, although reliability increases with community size. (Author/RLV)

Supposing different values of the standard measurement error, the relation of scale coarseness to the total amount of error is studied on the basis of probability distribution of error. The analyses are performed within two models of error and with two criteria of amount of error. (Editor/SJL)

Studies the relationship between subjective word frequency and some of the most common word attributes, familiarity, associability and pronounciability, all measured with the method of magnitude estimation. Also considers how individuals scale words in terms of comprehensibility and at the same time how this dimension is related to the other…

School library media specialists recommend quality Web sites to children based on evaluations and Web awards. This article examines three types of Web awards and who grants them, suggests ways to determine their reliability, and discusses specific award sites. Includes a bibliography of Web sites. (PEN)

The stability of a physical disability construct was examined across instruments and samples, not to report a formal equating of instrument calibrations, but to indicate whether such an effort could succeed. Implications of using Rasch analysis, often used in educational research, and the possibility of developing a universal metric are discussed.…

Data from the General Social Survey for 1977 (n=1,303) and 1991 (n=430) are used to examine the stability of attitudes toward abortion and women's roles. Findings support the hypothesis that public attitudes toward discretionary abortion and nontraditional sex roles are discrete but correlated sets of attitudes that remained stable from 1977 to…

A study of 20 elderly people with hearing impairments was conducted to test the reliability and stability of different hearing-aid outcome measures. Measures of hearing aid benefit, performance, use, and satisfaction exhibited stability over time, on both a group and individual basis, especially at and beyond 30-day post-fit. (CR)

Tested reliability and validity of an instrument designed to measure the strength of care, and justice as moral voices, in college students. Used 381 students in the study and found that the internal consistency and validity of the instrument were satisfactory. Construct validity was limited by the lack of other appropriate instruments. (RJM)

Editorial board members of "Educational and Psychological Measurement" were asked to list up to five publications each, written since roughly 1950, that they thought were seminal to shaping the measurement field. This bibliography lists 59 of their selections as a "hit parade" of measurement readings. (SLD)