This study was an initial psychometric investigation of the Universal Behavior Screener (UBS), a nine-item screening measure developed by psychologists within the Hawai'i Department of Education (HIDOE) to identify elementary school youth at risk for social, emotional, and behavioral concerns. Data from nine teachers reporting on 230 students at…

To promote and support teachers' professional growth in using formative assessment practices in the classroom, we developed and piloted a suite of materials which consists of a set of rubrics for ten dimensions of formative assessment and six self-reflection/peer-observation tools. We describe the iterative development process, the design…

This study provides preliminary evidence for reliability and validity of the Hawaii Early Learning Profile Strands 0-3 (HELP Strands 0-3), an assessment instrument for young children. First, the degree of interobserver agreement for a sample of representative HELP items was examined; results indicated that HELP scoring was dependable and…

Children's development of attitudes about science begins early. However, little is known regarding how children feel about science in the preschool years. The lack of a psychologically sound instrument that can appropriately capture young children's attitude towards science is another challenge faced by early childhood science researchers. The…

The Climate Change Attitude Survey is composed of 15 Likert-type attitudinal items selected to measure students' beliefs and intentions toward the environment with a focus on climate change. This paper describes the development of the instrument and psychometric performance characteristics including reliability and validity. Data were gathered…

This research explored the effectiveness of "Ka Hana 'Imi Na 'auao," a culturally responsive science curriculum developed for Hawaiian and other students in Hawai'i high schools. An instrument, The Culturally Responsive Science Perception (CRSP) inventory was developed to measure students' (a) perceptions of their science self-efficacy,…

To examine the utility of a self-report scale of sexual assault trauma, 223 female victims were interviewed with the 43-item Sexual Assault Symptom Scale II (SASS II) at 1, 3, 7, 11, and 15 months postassault. Factor analyses using principal-components extraction with an oblimin rotation yielded 7 common factors with 31 items. The internal…

The development and validation of the Home Learning Environment Profile (HLEP) are outlined. The HLEP instrument was designed to assess successful preschool home educational programs for Hawaiian families. The instrument covers sociodemographic, cultural, and environmental factors of Hawaiian families. After an extensive review of published…

A recently developed test of basic Piagetian abilities, the Colored Blocks Test, is described, and new data collected in rural Hawaii and in a working class Chicago suburb are used to defend its validity as a tool for cross-cultural measurement of cognitive development. (Author/AM)

Discusses the special problems of evaluation in a curriculum research and development setting. (Editor/RK)

Local teachers and other school personnel in Hawaii expressed a need for operational guidelines to use in deciding whether or not to refer students for diagnostic evaluations for specific learning disabilities (SLD). This project was designed to evaluate whether the Windward Rating Scale (WRS), a locally-developed teacher rating scale of student…

Data from the Stanford Test of Academic Skills Level I, administered to 10,910 tenth graders in Hawaii in Fall, 1985, are analyzed. The purposes of this report are to provide information on the effectiveness of the mathematics program in the high school, including the identification of deficiency areas and recommendations for improving…

A study of the effects of modality preferences and teacher competencies on reading achievement was undertaken using three different programs for initial reading instruction. The major purposes of the study were to determine differences in reading achievement when first grade children are placed in programs congruent or noncongruent with their…