The present study reports on the construction of a research instrument developed to examine preschool teachers' beliefs and practices in relation to emergent literacy. A 130-item survey (Preschool Literacy Survey, PLS) was completed by a total of 90 preschool teachers in Norway. Items were grouped into homogenous scales, and the relationship…

Much debate surrounds the issue of whether allowing candidates to listen to recordings twice is more desirable in language tests than offering just one opportunity. Using regression models, this study investigates, analyses and interconnects both item difficulty and stimulus length in relation to the frequency of stimulus presentation and its…

Objective: Psychometric details of the Parental Press for Academic Achievement and Postsecondary Planning Scale (PPS), developed by Chicago Consortium of Chicago School Research, are scarce. The purpose of this study was to reexamine the properties of this 7-item measure. Method: The study utilized cross-sectional, self-reported data from 100…

There have been many attempts over the last five decades to measure students' attitudes towards school science. Many of these studies investigated attitudes towards limited aspects of science and utilized large numbers of items to draw snapshot summaries of the educational landscape. An understanding of attitudes towards science, and how these…

The aim of this study is to determine the perceptions of preschool teachers regarding critical multicultural education competencies. The study is based on "Critical Multicultural Education Competency Model." The sample of this descriptive research consists of 120 teachers employed at 56 kindergartens and 24 independent nursery classes in…

Emotional literacy is described as being aware of our own feelings in order to improve our personal power and life quality as well as people's life quality around us. In this study, the aim is to develop a Likert scale which measures people's emotional literacy in order to be used both in descriptive and experimental researches. Related literature…

The purpose of this study was to investigate psychometric properties of the Children's Depression Inventory within a nonclinical and longitudinal sample (8th and 12th grades). Using the Rasch rating scale, most items represented one dimension. There was adequate separation among items and no overlap between ranges of item difficulties with latent…

Since 2004, the staff of the Know Your Schools~for NY Kids project has been conducting studies to examine what marks the difference between high- and average-performing schools. No matter what the level of schooling, the two groups of schools differ in how they use evidence to make decisions. In general, high-performing schools' approaches to…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the constructivist learning environment among Palestinian science students. The study also aimed to investigate the effects of gender and learning level of these students on their perceptions of the constructivist learning environment. Data were collected from 125 male and 101 female students from the…

Introduction: Despite academic climate being a key aspect of teaching quality in academic institutions, few studies conducted in the university context have analyzed this construct systematically. Method: Given the absence of specific tools to apply to university, we propose the construction of a tool for assessing college students' perceptions of…

Poor reciprocity is a defining feature of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In the current study, we examined the reliability and validity of the Interactive Drawing Test (IDT), a new instrument to assess reciprocal behavior. The IDT was administered to children and adolescents with ASD (n = 131) and to a typically developing group (n = 62). The…

This study attempted to develop valid and reliable Capstone Project Attitude Scales (CPAS). Among the scales reviewed, the Modified Fennema-Shermann Mathematics Attitude Scales was adapted in the construction of the CPAS. Usefulness, Confidence, and Gender View were the three subscales of the CPAS. Four hundred sixty-three students answered the…

The School Counseling Program Report Card--Student Version is a program evaluation tool designed to capture high school student perceptions of school counseling services. This article describes the initial instrument development process. Exploratory factor analysis (N = 305) yielded a 22-item instrument with three subscales that mirror the ASCA…

A recent study of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire reported high levels of differential item functioning (DIF) for 18 of its 39 items in meditating and nonmeditating samples that were not demographically matched. In particular, meditators were more likely to endorse positively worded items whereas nonmeditators were more likely to deny…

This study describes the development of an instrument to investigate the extent to which technology is integrated in science instruction in ways aligned to science reform outlined in standards documents. The instrument was developed by: (a) creating items consistent with the five dimensions identified in science education literature, (b)…