This article reports on the development and piloting of a German version of a concept test to assess students' conceptual knowledge of density. The concept test was administered in paper-pencil format to 222 German secondary school students as a post-test after instruction in all relevant concepts of density. We provide a psychometric…

Examined the usefulness of the K-correction procedure to adjust for a defensive response set on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) with 61 patients being evaluated for lung transplants. Results support the use of the K-correction procedure for this patient group. Implications for MMPI use are discussed. (SLD)

If examinees are permitted to choose to answer a subset of the questions on a test, just knowing which questions were chosen can provide a measure of proficiency that may be as reliable as would have been obtained from the test graded traditionally. This new method of scoring is much less time consuming and expensive for both the examinee and the…

Results from 344 college students and 129 psychiatric patients supported the effectiveness of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) Infrequency scale in detecting fake-bad responding and the usefulness of the MMPI-2 Obvious-Subtle index, Positive Malingering scale, and Lie scale in detecting fake-good responding. (SLD)

Studied rater reliability, internal scale validity, and person response validity of the School Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (School AMPS) using results for 208 elementary school students, some with educationally related disabilities. Results support rater reliability, scale validity, and person response validity of the School AMPS as a…

The development and initial validation of a new Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory--2 (MMPI-2) scale designed to determine infrequent responding with psychopathological populations are described. Results with 1,179 subjects show that the Infrequency-Psychopathology Scale (F p ) may be useful in settings with high base rates of…

An analysis of data from the 1990 National Assessment of Educational Progress Trial State Assessment suggests that person-fit statistics may not provide additional information about results of psychometrically strong achievement tests. More research is needed before person-fit statistics can be used routinely in analysis of item response data.…

Statistical and theoretical issues that arise from assessing person-fit on measures of typical performance are discussed, including the frequent attenuation of detection of person-misfit, the need for methods of identifying sources of response aberrancy, and person-fit measures as moderators of trait-criterion relations. (SLD)

The Student-Problem (S-P) methodology is described using an example of 24 students on a test of 44 items. Information based on the students' test score and the modified caution index is put to diagnostic use. A modification of the S-P methodology is applied to domain-referenced testing. (Author/CM)

Application of person-fit statistics to cognitive diagnosis requires special efforts to detect normal and usual response patterns resulting from sources of misconception that are frequently observed among students. This study shows a solution for the problem by introducing an extension of a person-fit statistic developed by K. Tatsuoka (1985).…

Psychometric properties of the Marital Coping Inventory (MCI) were evaluated by administering it and other measures to 120 newlywed couples, by observing spouses discussing marital problems, and by readministering the inventory to 104 spouses after 6 months. Results clarify coping in marriage. Implications for use of the instrument are discussed.…

Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to evaluate 11 Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) indicators of response distortion using 343 college students, some of whom simulated malingering or defensive responding, 181 forensic psychiatric patients, and 95 other psychiatric patients. Results show the usefulness…

Nonparametric item response models were used to investigate psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory in 648 depressed outpatients and 1,182 nonpatient college students. Estimated values for some options did not align with a priori weights in the college sample, and some option characteristic curves were problematic in both samples.…

In a counterbalanced, within subjects, repeated measures design, 130 undergraduates were administered the Computer-Assisted Hypnosis Scale (CAHS) and the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale and were hypnotized. The CAHS was shown to be a psychometrically sound instrument for measuring hypnotic ability. (SLD)

Literature related to the multiple true-false (MTF) item format is reviewed. Each answer cluster of a MTF item may have several true items and the correctness of each is judged independently. MTF tests appear efficient and reliable, although they are a bit harder than multiple choice items for examinees. (SLD)