Problems of scale typically arise when comparing test score trends, gaps, and gap trends across different tests. To overcome some of these difficulties, we can express the difference between the observed test performance of two groups with graphs or statistics that are metric-free (i.e., invariant under positive monotonic transformations of the…

A 2003 review of the literature shows a lack of formal institutional research focusing on the development of critical thinking as a situated experience--occurring in a specific context with a complex set of dynamics. Rather, much of the emphasis has been on learning outcomes as measured by various psychometric-approaches or an instructor's…

Introduction: Solo and nonurban practice, nonmembership of a professional group, and aging are all associated with underperformance and may be indicators of professional isolation. Although it may lead to underperformance in physicians, there are no clear measures to assess professional isolation. Methods: By mailed questionnaire, experienced…

Little is known about environmental concerns and attitudes among people in former Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe despite widespread perceptions of severe environmental problems. The authors addressed this gap by examining Bulgarians' environmental concerns with a focus on whether the new environmental paradigm (NEP) scale can reliably…

The development of the DETECT procedure marked an important advancement in nonparametric dimensionality analysis. DETECT is the first nonparametric technique to estimate the number of dimensions in a data set, estimate an effect size for multidimensionality, and identify which dimension is predominantly measured by each item. The efficacy of…

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) have contributed to test development and validation in counseling psychology, but additional applications have not been fully realized. The author presents an overview of the goals, terminology, and procedures of factor analysis; reviews best practices for extracting,…

Researchers sometimes need a statistical test of the hypothesis that two values of Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient are equal. The situation may involve scores from two different measures administered to independent random samples or from the same measure administered to random samples from two different populations. Feldt derived a test…

Cudeck and Browne (1983) proposed using cross-validation as a model selection technique in structural equation modeling. The purpose of this study is to examine the performance of eight cross-validation indices under conditions not yet examined in the relevant literature, such as nonnormality and cross-validation design. The performance of each…

In low-stakes testing, the motivation levels of examinees are often a matter of concern to test givers because a lack of examinee effort represents a direct threat to the validity of the test data. This study investigated the use of response time to assess the amount of examinee effort received by individual test items. In 2 studies, it was found…

School vouchers, particularly since the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Cleveland program, are one of the most contentious issues in American education. Seemingly contradictory results across available studies have caused confusion among diverse audiences. The authors suggest that these divergent findings are, in part, due to three…

An introductory CS1 course presents problems for educators and students due to students' diverse background in programming knowledge and exposure. Students who enroll in CS1 also have different expectations and motivations. Prompted by the curricular guidelines for undergraduate programmes in computer science released in 2001 by the ACM/IEEE, and…

This study (a) provided a conceptual introduction to differential item functioning (DIF), (b) introduced the multifaceted Rasch rating scale model (MRSM) and an associated statistical procedure for identifying DIF in rating scale items, and (c) applied this procedure to previously collected data from American coaches who responded to the coaching…

The Youth Self Report (YSR) is a popular and widely used instrument assessing adolescent emotional and behavioral functioning. The goals of the present study were to address some of the limitations of the YSR, to examine its factor structure and equivalence across four racial/ethnic groups, and to determine if another combination of items could…

Purpose: The purpose of the two studies described in this paper was to assess whether adults with dementia could assume an advice-giving role (Study 1) and a teacher role (Study 2) despite their cognitive impairments. So far, no research on adults with dementia has compared language production in a social conversation condition with that in an…

Empirical evidence of no age-related decline in life satisfaction (LS) in old age contrasts with frequently observed declines in the objective quality of elder people's lives and has therefore been labelled a "paradox" and interpreted in terms of stability of LS in the respective gerontological discussion. However, as this evidence was…