Psychometricians and test developers evaluate standardized tests for potential bias against groups of test-takers by using differential item functioning (DIF). English language learners (ELLs) are a diverse group of students whose native language is not English. While they are still learning the English language, they must take their standardized…

Students must be sufficiently motivated in order to achieve the intended learning outcomes of their college courses. Research in education and psychology has found motivation to be context-dependent. Therefore, students' motivation is likely to differ from one semester to the next according to which courses students are taking. However, there are…

Achievement motivation is considered a prerequisite for success in academic as well as non-academic settings. We studied sex differences in academic and general achievement motivation in an adult sample of 338 men and 497 women (ages 18-70 years). Multi-group covariance and means structure analysis (MG-CMSA) for ordered categorical data was used…

Based on the conceptualization that social desirable bias (SDB) is a discrete event resulting from an interaction between a scale's items, the testing situation, and the respondent's latent trait on a social desirability factor, we present a method that makes use of factor mixture models to identify which examinees are most likely to provide…

This study investigated the identification and distribution of perfectionist types with a sample of 111 academically gifted Chinese students aged 17 to 20 in Hong Kong. Three approaches to classification were employed. Apart from the direct questioning approach, the rational approach and the clustering approach classified students using their…

For the purposes of tailoring physics instruction in accordance with the needs and abilities of the students it is useful to explore the knowledge structure of students of different ability levels. In order to precisely differentiate the successive, characteristic states of student achievement it is necessary to use test items that possess…

This article describes the development of a ten-item scale to assess biology majors' self-efficacy towards the critical thinking and data analysis skills taught in an upper-division cell biology course. The original seven-item scale was expanded to include three additional items based on the results of item analysis. Evidence of reliability and…

Educational practitioners rely predominantly on measures of outcome, rather than of inputs or process, in making judgements as to quality. Outcome measures are available from two main sources: (1) the relatively new international assessment systems; and (2) the traditional national examinations systems. The two types of system differ in their…

This article presents a review of the "Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Fourth Edition" (WAIS-IV), an individually administered measure of cognitive ability for individuals aged 16 years, 0 months to 90 years, 11 months. The WAIS-IV was designed with a number of specific goals including updated norms, increased user friendliness,…

Following a landmark component analysis of cognitive therapy by Jacobson and colleagues (1996), there has been renewed interest in behavioral activation (BA) treatments for depression. The Behavioral Activation for Depression Scale (BADS) was developed to measure when and how clients become activated over the course of BA treatment. Multiple…

An innovative methodology is presented for describing the therapeutic processes involved in five types of adolescent treatments: psychoanalysis, psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive-behavioural therapy, mentalisation-based treatment and interpersonal psychotherapy. Using the "Adolescent Psychotherapy Q-Set" (APQ), 18 experienced clinicians…

The present study investigated the factor structure, reliability, convergent and discriminant validity, and U.S. norms of the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale, Second Edition (RCMAS-2; C. R. Reynolds & B. O. Richmond, 2008a) scores in a Singapore sample of 1,618 school-age children and adolescents. Although there were small…

Malay is a consistent alphabetic orthography with complex syllable structures. The focus of this research was to investigate word recognition performance in order to inform reading interventions for low-progress early readers. Forty-six Grade 1 students were sampled and 11 were identified as low-progress readers. The results indicated that both…

This article examines the issue of cognates in frequency-based vocabulary size testing. Data from a pilot study for a cognate-controlled English vocabulary size test was used to assess whether a group of Japanese university English learners (n = 60) were more successful at responding to cognate items than noncognate ones in three 1000 word…

This paper illustrates a method of item analysis used to identify discriminating multiple-choice items in placement data. The data come from two rounds of pilots given to both SHL students and Spanish as a Second Language (SSL) students. In the first round, 104 items were administered to 507 students. After discarding poor items, the second round…