This report outlines the stages of development and validation of the Attitude Toward the Subject Science Scale (ATSSS). The instrument, developed in accordance with the Ajzen and Fishbein (1980) theory of attitude assessment, can be used by junior secondary science teachers or administrators to assess student attitudes toward the subject science…

Research involving Potkay and Allen's Adjective Generation Technique (AGT) is reviewed concerning the measurement of anxiety. In this paper, no distinction is made between state anxiety and trait anxiety. It is suggested that state and trait anxiety may be considered apart from behavioral consistency. The issue of dramaturgical quality is…

An alternative procedure is examined to compare test scores which does not require the utilization of computers and therefore, can be easily employed by classroom teachers. This technique is called the Average System: a simple way to score examinees using information obtained from a representative sample (or samples). Examinees are ranked on a…

Recently more attention has been focused on elder abuse, with laws enacted requiring reporting of this crime. Since service providers often do not recognize elder abuse, a validated screening tool for elder abuse is needed. A screening tool called the Hwalek-Sengstock Elder Abuse Screening Protocol has been developed and is currently being…

Psychometric research was conducted on the TEMAS (meaning "themes" in Spanish) Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). Personality functioning is rated in terms of constructs such as delay of gratification, achievement motivation, reality testing, and self-concept. The TEMAS test was administered to 140 public and 140 private school students…

The paper reports findings of a study describing and analyzing the creative and social behavior of four highly original children in the context of 1 year's preschool experience. Videotape, interview, participant observation, and artifact data were collected to construct the descriptions. The study attempted to answer the following questions: (1)…

This one-page abstract summarizes "The Miller Assessment for Preschoolers: A Longitudinal and Predictive Study" by Lucy Miller, which examined the predictive validity of an early childhood screening instrument to identify children who have or are at risk of developing handicapping conditions. The Miller Assessment for Preschoolers (MAP)…

The use of new extension of standard Item Response Theory (IRT) modeling of dichotomous items to include external variables is proposed. External variables may appear both as categorical grouping variables and as continuous variables; this requires the formulation of a model for the relationships between the external variables and the response…

The present study used a number of commonly observed sex-typed objects and activities as stimuli in an attempt to assess androgyny in primary school children. As a test of concurrent validity, children's preference scores were correlated with a parent-report measure of sex-typing. Three methods of sex role classification (between-sex median split,…

This paper reports the results of a behavioral anchoring analysis of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (Form G, Level 12) vocabulary (41 items) and reading comprehension (56 items) tests. Subjects were 82 sixth-grade students enrolled at the Carterville (Illinois) Grade School. More specifically, a curriculum-referenced interpretation of the ability…

Using tests that are neither reliable nor valid, school districts are currently categorizing large numbers of children as unready for entrance into kindergarten and first grade. Parents are being asked to wait a year before sending their children to public school classes or to place them in a pre-kindergarten class. Other children complete…

This study reports on the development of a Likert scale measuring attitudes toward Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) victims (ATAV) in five phases. Participants included a total of 215 male and 268 female undergraduates at Oregon State University. The results for phase 1 yielded a scale with high part-whole correlations, corrected…

This study concentrates on the development and estimation of measurement properties of the College Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (CASES). Three university faculties in education and psychology developed a pool of routine, frequent academic behaviors of college students. The pool was examined by seven graduate teaching assistants and trimmed and…

During the 1986 administration of the Work Aspect Preference Scale (WAPS) in a study of career development from Year 8 to Year 9, some of the students in Mount Druitt, west of Sydney, Australia, had difficulty in understanding the meaning of some terms. A closer investigation was then conducted of the usefulness of the WAPS for this group of…

Reasons for administering tests fall into two categories--decision-making and promoting learning. The two bases of tests are learning objectives and the level of learning at which training is developed. Test development involves a number of steps. The best way to tie objectives to test items is through the use of a table of specifications, which…