A mental model is a knowledge structure composed of concepts and the relations between them. Mental models are distinct from declarative and procedural knowledge--they go beyond semantic relationships and skills acquisition and contain varied intellectual skills and knowledge. This study describes an initial investigation into the construct…

The first study described in this paper estimates the reliability of the four subscale versions of the 40-item Computer Attitude Scale (CAS), an instrument designed to measure attitudes toward learning about and using computers. It provides detailed information about the factor patterns of CAS subscales and evidence of the differential validity of…

In the early 1970s A. Constantinople wrote a seminal article that led to the development of the construct of psychological androgyny. The Bem Sex-Role Inventory is a popular measure of the construct, but the measure remains controversial. The construct validity of scores from the measure was explored using confirmatory factor analysis on data from…

The purposes of this study were to develop an instrument to measure students' attitude toward statistics (STATS), and to define the underlying dimensions that comprise the STATS. The instrument consists of 24 items. The sample included 79 male and 97 female students from the statistics classes at the College of Education and the College of…

Early intervention has shifted in focus to family centered assessment and treatment. The Comprehensive Evaluation of Family Functioning was developed to meet the need for accurate family assessment, but limited psychometric information on the measure is available. The present research investigated the psychometric properties of the CEFF with a…

In 1980, the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) revised the instruments used to assess basic skills attainment in mathematics and reading of all students in grades 4, 7, and 10. The research summarized in this paper examined the factor structures of the 1979 and 1980 versions of the Grade 10 MEAP mathematics test. These two versions…

In the present study, the Vocational Preference Inventory scores for a group of black students and white students were factor analyzed and the black structure was rotated to correspond to the white structure. The correspondence between the variables for black and white students was found to be very similar. (Author)

Comrey Personality Scales (1970) were administered to 179 New Zealand university and teachers' college students. Factor analysis of the data confirmed that the basic structure of the scales was almost identical with that found in the American normative sample. (Author/RC)

This paper reviews recent work in factor analysis of categorical variables. Emphasis is on the generalized least squares solution. A section on maximum likelihood solution focuses on extensions of the classical model, especially the normal case. Many of the recent developments have taken place within this context, and it provides a unified…

A review of the literature on job analysis and job evaluation reveals several aspects of jobs which are important to organizations. To better explain the psychological dimensions of the work environment, three models of perceived job characteristics were compared using confirmatory factor analysis: Walsh, Taber, and Beehr's (1980) components of…

The structure of this report is as follows: First, specific aptitude theory and general ability theory, the two theories of the relation between ability and job performance, are presented and differentiated. Second, there is a discussion of problems in the current use of the General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB) and of problems in the use of…

The purposes of the present investigation are to compare the structure and level of multidimensional self-concepts for boys and girls from England and Australia, and to demonstrate the use of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in making such comparisons. Subjects were random samples of 303 English preadolescents and 303 Australians that were…

The extent of congruence of the underlying factor structures of the learning environment and cognitive variables for mathematics and English courses in grade 10 are presented. The Learning Environment Inventory (LEI), the Otis-Lennon Mental Ability Test, and the Sequential Tests of Educational Progress were administered to 317 students. The…

The purpose of this study was to replicate previous factor analytical studies of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) employing children identified as gifted. However, rather than using the IQ criterion, a child's 11 WISC-R subtest scores were included in the analysis. Subsamples of gifted (as classified by local school…