Background: Achenbach & Rescorla (2003) recently developed the Adult Behavior Checklist (ABCL) to assess psychopathology in the general population. The ABCL should be completed by a proxy informant. The use of proxy informants, instead of self-reporting, makes the ABCL potentially suitable for the assessment of psychopathology in adults with…

This article presents the authors' response to the discussants of their article "A Suggested Change in Terminology and Emphasis Regarding Validity and Education" (this issue)--Susan E. Embretson, Joanna S. Gorin, Robert J. Mislevy, Pamela A. Moss, and Stephen G. Sireci. Their response is limited to a brief summarization of their position…

The authors developed the Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors Interview (SITBI) and evaluated its psychometric properties. The SITBI is a structured interview that assesses the presence, frequency, and characteristics of a wide range of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors, including suicidal ideation, suicide plans, suicide gestures, suicide…

Increasing people's ability to solve complex problems is more and more often being seen as an integral part of vocational education. While there have been numerous empirically-based approaches to the didactic structuring of teaching and learning arrangements by which students' ability to solve problems can be increased, knowledge of how to…

In this rejoinder to John Chubb's reply to "Edison Is the Symptom, NCLB Is the Disease," the author argues that Edison offers feel-good measures without really solving any of the problem of schools in poverty. Defending his original argument, the author cites a RAND study that questions the results Chubb claims. The study indicates the…

The main goal of this research study is to explore the interconnection between museum learning and theatre learning. We will begin this exploratory process by analyzing the functions of role-playing and improvisation as teaching and learning strategies, and we will then expand this analysis to the idea of storytelling as a link between learning in…

This measurement study examined the construct validity of the retell component of the Texas Middle School Fluency Assessment (Texas Education Agency, University of Houston, & The University of Texas System, 2008a) within a confirmatory factor analysis framework. The role of retell, provided after a one-minute oral reading fluency measure, was…

Objective: This dissertation developed an automatic classification procedure, as an example of a novel tool for an informationist, which extracts information from published abstracts, classifies abstracts into their "fields of study," and then determines the researcher's "field of study" and "level of activity." …

This study reports on the development and evaluation of a rating tool to assess the scientific utility and cultural appropriateness of community-level indicators for application with Indigenous populations. Indicator criteria proposed by the U.S. Institute of Medicine were culturally adapted through reviewing the literature and consultations with…

Background: Assessments of child psychopathology commonly rely on multiple informants, e.g., parents, teachers and children. Informants often disagree about the presence or absence of symptoms, reflecting reporter bias, situation-specific behaviour, or random variation in measurement. However, few studies have systematically tested how far…

The purpose of this study was to develop a valid and reliable tool for measuring the quality of the language and literacy environment in home-based settings. Based on a convergence of research on the ecological and psychological factors associated with early literacy development, the Child/Home Environmental Language and Literacy Observation…

For the past 3 yr, faculty at the University of New Mexico, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology have been using interactive online Problem-Based Learning (PBL) case discussions in our large-enrollment classes. We have developed an illustrative tracking method to monitor student use of problem-solving strategies to provide targeted…

While checklists are often used to score standardized patient based clinical assessments, little research has focused on issues related to their development or the level of agreement with respect to the importance of specific items. Five physicians independently reviewed checklists from 11 simulation scenarios that were part of the former…

The ability to identify children who require specialist assessment for the possibility of autism at as early an age as possible has become a growing area of research. A number of measures have been developed as potential screening tools for autism. The reliability and validity of one of these measures for screening for autism in young children…

Background: Two major conceptions of learning exist: reproducing new material and transforming material to make meaning. Teachers' understandings of what learning is probably influence their teaching practices and student academic performance. Aims: To validate a short scale derived from Tait, Entwistle, & McCune's (1998) ASSIST inventory and…