Scores of 135 community college students on the Occupational Aptitude Survey and Interest Schedule (OASIS) were compared with different academic majors. A series of 18 one-way analyses of variance provided evidence for the construct validity of the OASIS Interest Schedule. (Author/GDC)

Three studies of dynamic testing of spatial aptitude were performed with training on the physical analogue of the mental task between the pre-test and the post-test. A total of 129 college students participated. Training increased spatial ability. Other experiments indicated that construct validity was influenced by dynamic testing. (SLD)

Examination of methods used by two software review services in evaluating microcomputer courseware--EPIE (Educational Products Information Exchange) and MicroSIFT (Microcomputer Software and Information for Teachers)--found low correlations between their recommendations for 82 programs. This lack of agreement casts doubts on the usefulness of…

The sporadic investigations regarding children's concepts of death have lacked standard methods or instruments for evaluating these conceptions. Whether or not research on children's concepts of death can be gauged by a standard set of questions is explored in this paper. It reports on the evaluation of a new questionnaire's (Concept of Life and…

A continuing and vexing problem associated with survey instrument development is the creation of items, initially, that correlate favorably a posteriori with constructs being measured. This study tests the use of symbolic-logic matrices developed by D. G. Coleman (1979) in creating factorially "pure" statistically discrete constructs in…

Factor analysis has historically been used for myriad purposes in the social and behavioral sciences, but an especially important application of this technique has been to evaluate construct validity. Since in the present milieu both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) are readily available to the researcher,…

This study examined the comparability of scores on the National Nurses Aides Assessment Program (NNAAP) test across language and administration condition groups for calibration and validation samples that were randomly drawn from the same population. A sample of 20,568 candidate responses to 1 test form was used. This examination is given in…

One of the most salient requirements for international educational research is the use of comparable measures. For the comparison of student performance across countries the use of item response theory (IRT) scaling techniques facilitates the collection of cross-nationally comparable measures. But there is also a need for valid and comparable…

The importance of reassessing the psychometric properties of an existing scale is highlighted. The construct validity of a driver attitude scale was not confirmed by factor analysis and the original scale scores were shown to have poor to moderate internal reliability. On the basis of a re-analysis of data from 1,059 repeat traffic offenders, 39…

The issue of treatment fidelity has been a concern in the field of evaluation research. Nearly three decades ago, Cook and Campbell (1975) outlined four types of validity that may influence treatment outcomes. Defining these validity measures has since prompted researchers to closely examine potential threats within the context of program…

A literature review evaluated the construct validity of the Affective, Continuance, and Normative Commitment Scales, which were strongly supported for use in research. The review identified empirical questions still needing resolution. (73 references) (SK)

Contrasted a new measure of self-control, the Retrospective Behavioral Self-Control scale (RBS), with the most widespread measure of this construct (H. Grasmick and others, 1993). Results show that the RBS measured the general factor of behavior across samples of 214 and 213 undergraduates and 76 employees, but the other scale, used with only one…

Studied the construct validity of the Fairy Tale Test (C. Coulacoglu, 1993), a personality projective test for children, in a sample of 800 Greek children aged 8, 10, and 12. Factor analysis led to identification of eight primary factors, and correlations with other measures provide construct validity evidence. (SLD)

Examined participants' tendency to use affective constructs to influence nonaffective constructs (behavioral and valuative), and their ability to generate affective constructs. Using a modified repertory grid procedure, 131 participants compared each combination of affective, valuative, and behavioral constructs so as to make decisions about the…

Conceptualizes and examines the validity of a measure of cognitive communication competence, involving four temporarily discreet mental processes. Indicates a five-factor solution not identical with the original conceptualized dimensions, which reflects a temporal separation of cognitions but also reveals different types of communication…