According to two decades of research, parental sexual orientation does not affect overall child development. Researchers have not found significant differences between offspring of heterosexual parents and those of lesbian and gay parents in terms of their cognitive, psychological, or emotional adjustment. Still, there are gaps in the literature…

Objective: To complement standardized measurement of symptoms, we developed and tested an efficient strategy for identifying (before treatment) and repeatedly assessing (during treatment) the problems identified as most important by caregivers and youths in psychotherapy. Method: A total of 178 outpatient-referred youths, 7-13 years of age, and…

Learners' feelings of social connectedness may be a key factor in predicting online course success. However, students attempting to perceive and process the social context in online courses often find themselves engaging in unfamiliar, technology-mediated communication channels. While there have been several empirically based strategies published…

Real-life, complex problems often require that decisions are made despite limited information or insufficient time to explore all relevant aspects. Incorporating authentic uncertainties into an assessment, however, poses problems in establishing results and analysing their methodological qualities. This study aims at developing a test on clinical…

The present study was carried out to find out whether regular administration of cloze test improved the students' knowledge of grammar more than the multiple choice one. Subjects participating in this study were 84 Iranian pre-university students of Allameh-Gotb-e Ravandi University, aged between 18 and 35 and enrolled in a grammar course. To…

Differential Item Functioning (DIF) is a group-related item/test characteristic targeting the issue of item/test bias. In this dissertation, a new DIF index is described that has three parts: (1) a DIF measure indicating the degree of different (item) performances between the reference and focal groups, (2) a DIF direction statement about the DIF…

Research Findings: This study examined the validity and reliability of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS; R. C. Pianta, K. M. La Paro, & B. K. Hamre, 2008) in Finnish kindergartens. A pair of trained observers used the CLASS to observe 49 kindergarten teachers (47 female, 2 male) on two different days. Questionnaires measuring…

This paper represents one outcome from the "Invitational Research Symposium on Technology-Enabled and Universally Designed Assessments," which examined technology-enabled assessments (TEA) and universal design (UD) as they relate to students with disabilities (SWD). It was developed to stimulate research into TEAs designed to make tests…

Physics educators around the world often need reliable diagnostic materials to measure students' understanding of physics concept in high school. The purpose of this study is to evaluate a new diagnostic tool on High School Optics concept. Test of Conceptual Understanding on High School Optics (TOCUSO) consists of 25 conceptual items that measures…

The SAS Educational Value-Added Assessment System (SAS[R] EVAAS[R]) is the most widely used value-added system in the country. It is also self-proclaimed as "the most robust and reliable" system available, with its greatest benefit to help educators improve their teaching practices. This study critically examined the effects of SAS[R] EVAAS[R] as…

Presented at the 23rd Annual Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU) Conference in Atlanta, GA, in September 2011. Admitted Class Evaluation Service (ACES) is the College Board's free online service that predicts how admitted students will perform at a college or university generally, and how successful students will be in specific…

Individuals' use of language in contexts emerges from second-to-second processes of activating and integrating traces of past experiences--an interactionist view compatible with the study of language as a complex adaptive system but quite different from the trait-based framework through which measurement specialists investigate validity, establish…

Because of a shortage of valid instruments to measure the QOL of people with profound multiple disabilities (PMD), the QOL-PMD was developed. In the present study, possibilities for item reduction as well as the psychometric properties of the questionnaire were examined. One hundred and forty-seven informants of people with PMD participated in the…

This study assessed the convergent and divergent validity of the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA; LeBuffe, Shapiro, & Naglieri, 2008). A total of 227 (n = 94 teachers, n = 133 parents) raters completed the DESSA, in addition to the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scales-2 (BERS-2; Epstein, 2004) and/or the Behavior Assessment…

Background: Negative trauma-related cognitions have been found to be a significant factor in the maintenance of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adults. Initial studies of such appraisals in trauma-exposed children and adolescents suggest that this is an important line of research in youth, yet empirically validated measures for use with…