This article reports three studies in which a scale for assessing teachers' beliefs about professional-development initiatives was developed and its scores evaluated for reliability and validity. Results indicated that the Teachers' Attitudes About Professional Development (TAP) scale produced scores with high reliability, a stable one-factor…

Tables permitting the conversion of short-form composite scores to full-scale IQ estimates have been published for previous editions of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). Equivalent tables are now needed for selected subtests of the WAIS-III. This article used Tellegen and Briggs's formulae to convert the sum of scaled scores for four…

To meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, school districts and states must compile summary reports of the levels of student achievement in reading and mathematics. The levels are to be described in broad categories: "basic and below," "proficient," or "advanced." Educational units are given considerable latitude in defining the…

The dependence construct fills an important explanatory role in motivational accounts of smoking and relapse. Frequently used measures of dependence are either atheoretical or grounded in a unidimensional model of physical dependence. This research creates a multidimensional measure of dependence that is based on theoretically grounded motives for…

This article reviews the "ADHD Rating Scale-IV: Checklist, norms, and clinical interpretation," is a norm-referenced checklist that measures the symptoms of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) according to the diagnostic criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric…

The OMNI Personality Inventory (OMNI) is a self-report questionnaire designed for use with adolescents and adults between 18 and 74 years of age. The questionnaire is not based on a particular theory, consistent with current trends in test development, according to the author. An abbreviated form of the OMNI, the OMNI-IV Personality Disorder…

The Motor-Free Visual Perception Test: Third edition (MVPT-3; Colarusso & Hammill, 2003) purports to measure overall visual perceptual ability. Task responses require no motor ability, eliminating the effect of motor performance on the overall visual perception score. The test authors suggested that this MVPT-3 characteristic allows for its…

Technical characteristics of the Reading Essential Skill Screener--Preschool Version (RESS-P) were studied using four independent samples of boys and girls aged 3-5 years. A decision efficiency study (N = 91) resulted in a total predictive value (TPV) of .85 when compared with the criterion of teacher report/judgment of emerging literacy at-risk…

This study assessed the invariance in the factor structure of the "Test of English as a Foreign Language"™ Internet-based test (TOEFL® iBT) across subgroups of test takers who differed in native language and exposure to the English language. The subgroups were defined by (a) Indo-European and Non-Indo-European language family, (b)…

Two survey instruments were developed and validated to measure early childhood teachers' (1) knowledge of early mathematical development and (2) beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning in the preschool classroom. The Knowledge of Mathematical Development (KMD) Survey was designed to measure teachers' knowledge of mathematical development…

In the recent years, teacher quality has become a top priority of our national education policy. There is empirical evidence that suggests that teacher inputs have impact on student outcomes. It is also believed that teacher dispositions are as crucial for student achievement as a teacher's pedagogical and content knowledge/skills. The National…

This article describes the development of a measure of adult sleep quality: the Adult Sleep-Wake Scale (ADSWS). The ADSWS is a self-report pencil-and-paper measure of sleep quality consisting of five behavioral dimensions (Going to Bed, Falling Asleep, Maintaining Sleep, Reinitiating Sleep, and Returning to Wakefulness). Data were collected from…

This exploratory study investigates the potential of Wiki technology as a tool for teaching and learning. Wikis are a component of Web 2.0 technology tools that provide collaborative features and active learning opportunities in a web-based environment. This research study sought to empirically determine the pedagogical value of using Wiki…

The focus of this report is to summarize the research that has been conducted thus far on the new SAT Writing section. The evidence provided reveals that the new writing section has satisfactory psychometric quality in that its reliability is acceptable; it is significantly related to first-year college GPA and college English grades; it has been…

Measures developed from animal models of aging may detect dementia of the Alzheimer's type in a population at-risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Although, by middle age, individuals with Down syndrome (DS) show an extraordinarily high prevalence of AD-type pathology, their severe idiopathic cognitive deficits tend to confound the "clinical"…