This study reports on the national standardization and validation of the Learning Behaviors Scale (LBS) for use in Trinidad and Tobago. The LBS is a teacher rating scale centering on observable behaviors relevant to identifying childhood approaches to classroom learning. Teachers observed a stratified sample of 900 students across the islands'…

Although advances have improved our ability to describe the measurement precision of a test, it often remains challenging to summarize how well a test is performing overall. Reliability, for example, provides an overall summary of measurement precision, but it is sample-specific and might not reflect the potential usefulness of a test if the…

This article provides GP-CORE norms for a South African university sample, which are compared to published data obtained from a United Kingdom university sample. The measure appears to be both reliable and valid for this multilingual and multicultural South African sample. The profiles of the psychological distress reported by white South African…

One of the problems inherent in variance component estimation centers around inadmissible estimates. Such estimates occur when there is more variability within groups, relative to between groups. This paper suggests a Bayesian approach to resolve inadmissibility by placing noninformative inverse-gamma priors on the variance components, and…

In the social sciences, latent traits often have a hierarchical structure, and data can be sampled from multiple levels. Both hierarchical latent traits and multilevel data can occur simultaneously. In this study, we developed a general class of item response theory models to accommodate both hierarchical latent traits and multilevel data. The…

Two new methods for constructing a credibility interval (CI)--an interval containing a specified proportion of true validity description--are discussed, from a frequentist perspective. Tolerance intervals, unlike the current method of constructing the CI, have performance characteristics across repeated applications and may be useful in validity…

A large number of seemingly diverse coefficients have been proposed as indices of dependability, or reliability, for domain-referenced and/or mastery tests. In this paper, it is shown that most of these indices are special cases of two generalized indices of agreement: one that is corrected for chance, and one that is not. The special cases of…

This chapter should not only acquaint the reader with the present state of the art on Criterion-Referenced (CR) measurement but also suggest possible directions for further inquiry. The goal of the first part of this chapter is to deal with the definitional dilemma of CR measurement by proceeding from the more traditional view of CR measurement to…