Although the consistency of personality characteristics has been identified in groups of persons studied from infancy into young adulthood, few such studies have been able to include older adults. To investigate the stability of personality and social characteristics among young-old and old-old adults, 72 adults (51 female, 21 male) from the…

In the first of these three articles, methods for reporting vocational interests which do and do not reflect sex role stereotypes are examined. The second article is a reply to problems noted in the first article, and the third article is a rebuttal by the first authors. (Author/HMV)

A study investigated the validity and reliability of grades and credits earned by students in the five academic departments of biological sciences (33 majors), organic chemistry and biology (106 majors) at a large public university. Validity was assessed by comparing grades assigned by faculty with scores earned on subject-related standardized…

The validity and reliability of aggregating individuals' perceptions of college organizational characteristics to more macro units of analysis were examined. The focus was the extent to which data collected in a national study met the internal consistency criterion for aggregating perceptual data to the institution level. The study assessed key…

The major finding of the Law-Related Education Evaluation Project report for Year 1 (1981), that law-related education courses can reduce juvenile delinquency, is of limited use to educational decision makers and could be misleading. The research design leaves much to be desired; however, that fact must be considered in light of the difficulty of…

A comparison of multisite educational research projects involving qualitative research methods is reported. In phase 1 of the project, telephone interviews with key staff members of 25 projects determined ways in which each project handled important qualitative design and implementation choices. Phase 2 consisted of a more intensive study of 5…

Thirty specific standards developed as guiding principles to maintain the utility, feasibility, propriety and accuracy of evaluations in educational programs, projects and materials are presented. Utility Standards include Audience Identification, Evaluator Credibility, Information Scope and Selection, Valuational Interpretation, Report Clarity,…

Consistency theory holds that persons are motivated to behave in ways that maintain a "steady state" cognitively and otherwise; need-fulfillment theory argues that people will act in ways that reinforce their sense of worth and enhance their self-esteem. While consistency theory predicts that low self-esteem persons will exhibit more eye…

A technique to measure the quality of agricultural extension programs by the clientele was developed and tested. The study was conducted in three major steps. First, unstructured interviews of forty-eight farmers and agribusiness persons in seven Ohio counties were conducted to identify those factors they considered when evaluating their county's…

Only a longitudinal study, in which retrospective reports can be verified against data collected earlier, can determine what topics tend to be reported accurately and whether certain types of individuals are more likely to be accurate reporters. A representative group of adults who became parents 50 years ago are now part of the oldest and longest…

Two studies were conducted to develop and refine instruments for measuring nonverbal immediacy, defined as approach behaviors increasing sensory stimulation and producing interpersonal closeness. In the first study, three instruments were developed concurrently and were tested to establish their reliability and preliminary validity. These…

This paper discusses evaluation design considerations for a computer based evaluation simulation developed at the University of Iowa College of Medicine in Cardiology to assess the diagnostic skills of primary care physicians and medical students. The simulation developed allows for the assessment of diagnostic skills of physicians in the…

The similarity between two scales for assessing socioeconomic status was examined from longitudinal data on the achievement of Canadian students. Toronto's Longitudinal Study of Achievement sampled the complete senior kindergarten population (8,679 5-year-olds) in 1961-62, classifying father's occupations according to Hollingshead and Redlich's…

The average design effects for statistics estimated from the base-year National Longitudinal Study data are presented. Attempts to partition the effects into those due to stratification, clustering, and unequal weighting are discussed. The expected increases in subpopulation sample sizes due to oversampling are calculated and compared with the…

Two predictors of coding performance were validated when 26 trained subjects used the Flanders System of Interaction Analysis to code 11 half-hour videotapes of fifth grade classrooms. The Teacher Evaluation Scale, a high-inference rating system based on the Global Rating Scales, was also used. The predictors were scores on a shortened form of the…