The persistent gap between the performance of mainstream students and racially and linguistically diverse students--for example, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans--on standardized tests may well signal problems with procedures for the development and use of standardized tests in general, and for their use with culturally…

Background: The appropriateness of the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fourth Edition" (DSM-IV) nosology for classifying preschool mental health disturbances continues to be debated. To inform this debate, we investigate whether preschool psychopathology shows differentiation along diagnostically specific lines…

Behavioral theories developed through research with mainstream, English-speaking populations have been applied to ethnically diverse and underserved communities in the effort to eliminate disparities in early breast cancer detection. This study tests the validity of the transtheoretical model (TTM) decisional balance measure and the application of…

It has been reasonably well established that test takers can sometimes answer correctly some reading comprehension passages without reading the passages on which the questions are based. This issue was studied with the new Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) in a study designed to determine the strategies by which examinees are able to achieve…

Correlational methods are compared to an alternative method based on decision theory and logistic regression for providing validity evidence for college admissions and course placement criteria. The advantages and limitations of both methods are examined. The correlation coefficient measures the strength of the linear statistical relationship…

This study examined the validity of an instrument designed to measure the effectiveness of faculty advisers to freshmen at a small, private, liberal arts college (approximately 1,100 students). The 19-question Advising Effectiveness Questionnaire (AEQ) was distributed to three successive freshman classes at the end of each academic year. Factor…

The development and evaluation of methods for detecting potentially biased items or differentially functioning items (DIF) represent a critical area of research for psychometricians because of the negative impact of biased items on test validity. A summary is provided of the authors' 12 years of research at the University of Massachusetts…

This presentation addresses issues of faculty evaluation in the university context and the effective use and usefulness of portfolios. A section on portfolio content validity asks about the right things to include and briefly discusses scholarship, teaching, and service components. A section on criterion-related validity asks whether rival…

Administration of the Test of Spoken English (TSE) yields tapes of oral performance on items within six sections of the test. Trained scorers subsequently rate responses using four proficiency scales: pronunciation, grammar, fluency, and overall comprehensibility. This project examined the consistency of statistical relations among TSE scores with…

A study refined a valid and reliable measure to measure learner empowerment and determined construct validity by correlating learner empowerment with the related variables affinity-seeking (an interpersonal communication construct), motivation to study, and learning. Subjects, 340 undergraduate students enrolled in communication classes at a…

This study asked whether nine adolescent and adult facilitated communication users with autism could, in a facilitator-blind condition, respond accurately to stimuli presented on a computer screen, thus demonstrating that they are the sole authors of their communication. A time and task sampling method was used, in which various communication…

A study was undertaken at California's College of the Canyons (CC) to determine whether evidence existed of disproportionate impact in English reading course placement based on student ethnicity, gender, or age. Data were compiled for all 4,312 students tested between spring 1993 and fall 1995, while the standard for disproportionate impact was…

A study was conducted at California's College of the Canyons to determine whether evidence existed of disproportionate impact by age, gender, ethnicity, or disability in placement recommendations made based on the college's writing sample assessment test. The sample consisted of 617 students who took the writing test and writing sample test for…

A study was conducted at Rochester Community College, in Minnesota, to compare pass rates in a college-level mathematics class for mathematically underprepared students who enrolled in developmental courses and those who did not. The study population consisted of 73 students enrolled in Math 103, while data were collected on the student's final…

A recently developed model of validation (T. J. Crooks, M. T. Kane, and A. S. Cohen, 1996) is briefly outlined. It conceptualizes assessment as divided into a chain of eight linked stages: (1) administration; (2) scoring; (3) aggregation; (4) generalization; (5) extrapolation; (6) evaluation; (7) decision; and (8) impact. The model is then used to…