Observer disagreement is important because it limits the reliabilities of observational measures. To avoid this limitation, observers should be trained, and criterion-related and intraobserver agreement measures should be used both before and during a study. Several agreement coefficients are examined for their applicability. (Author/BW)

A procedure is presented for the analysis of rating data with correlated intrajudge and uncorrelated interjudge measurement errors. Correlations between true scores on different rating dimensions, reliabilities for each judge on each dimension and correlations between intrajudge errors can be estimated given a minimum of three raters and two…

The Stanford Preschool Internal-External Scale (SPIES) was administered to middle class kindergarten children to investigate whether the characteristics of the test would remain stable as it did for the normative sample. (Author/DEP)

Although word recognition tests continue to be widely employed by teachers, the application of out-of-date norms and varying methods of administration and scoring seriously reduce the usefulness of these tests. As a result, a restandardization of the Burt-Vernon and Schonell tests was undertaken to produce reliable norms and to standardize…

Prediger confuses observations about the data with Holland's theoretical statement, performs some uninterpretable analyses, omits much relevant data, and provides an incomplete account of what psychometric authorities have said about raw scores in interest inventories. (Author)

Advantages and disadvantages of no-penalty and penalty marking systems are discussed. Ways in which examiners have attempted to correct for guessing by students are reviewed, along with the use of "don't know" options and confidence-weighting for attempting to assess the degree of certainty that candidates attach to their answers. (Author/LBH)

Some of the merits and pitfalls of multiple choice examinations are outlined and ways of increasing reliability and feedback information are summarized. Included are discussions of basic format, examples of poor design, examples of augmentation, and feedback from computerized grading. (LBH)

Trained raters analyzed the educational and psychometric quality of standardized mathematics tests for high school students in the United States. Results showed many tests to be weak in common types of validity and reliability. General mathematics tests had, as a rule, higher ratings than applied mathematics, algebra, or geometry tests. (Author/MN)

In testing minority students, one should be guided by three maxims: (1) "Know Thy Test"--what is being tested, how to administer the test, what reliance to place on results; (2) "Know Thy Student"--understand the population and its sociocultural milieu; (3) "Know Thyself"--personal attitudes and the programs and practices under one's control. (MJB)

This research espouses the term "uniqueness" to circumvent the connotative qualities of abnormality and deviance, i.e., to convey a positive striving for being different relative to other people. The theoretical underpinning of the uniqueness motivation construct and the development and validation of a scale measuring desire for…

Described in the interim report of the Children's Behavioral Classification Project (CBCP) is the CBCP instrument, a duplicated list of 274 behavioral items and three demographic items which provides a profile of the emotionally disordered child based on observations by the parent or parent-surrogate. (SBH)

Pilot study testing of the Organizational Health Inventory (OHI), developed to measure the health of schools along seven dimensions of interactions among teachers, students, and administrators, showed positive results supporting the stability of the factor structure, and reliability and validity of the subtests. (Author/CB)

This investigation examined the three-year stability of WISC-R IQs for a balanced sample of Anglo, Black, and Mexican-American handicapped children. No significant differences in mean IQs were found across the three ethnic groups, although WISC-R Verbal and Performance IQs varied significantly over the test-retest period. (Author/BS)

Investigated the alternate-forms and alpha reliabilities of the Teacher Stress Inventory (TSI) based on the responses of two groups of 138 teachers. Demonstrated high stability and equivalence for the stress factors across immediate, one-day, one-week, and one-week intervals. Between-forms correlations were larger for the immediate than for the…