This book addresses problems and challenges that face educational measurement at a time when multipurpose usage of observational data from educational assessments, tests and international surveys has become a growing global trend. While the construction of educational measures and use of educational data offer many opportunities, they also require awareness of the numerous threats to validity and methods of reducing such threats. Written by leading international scholars, the book demonstrates the complexity of educational measurement by addressing three broad and interrelated topics. The first part discusses cognitive abilities, including studies on fluid intelligence, its improvement and its links to aptitude tests for admission to higher education. The second part focuses on the effects of school and teacher-related factors on school outcomes at individual and group levels, and uses international studies to analyze causes. The third part presents analytical techniques and measurement methods to improve reliability, for example factor analysis using Bayesian estimators, bi-factor analysis, model misfit and solutions, and discusses balance issues in reporting test results. The book provides examples of state-of-the-art analytical techniques for pursuing fundamental research problems, and the latest advances in measurement methods, with a focus on validity improvement. Eminent researchers discuss and provide insights into questions such as: Is it possible to train individuals to think at a higher level than normal for their age? What determines prospective preschool teachers' skill to perceive mathematics-related preschool situations? Can international indicator design and instruments be improved to use trends and national context variables more efficiently? Can indicator data at national, school and class levels be compared easier? Are value-added measures of teacher effectiveness valid when it comes to hiring and promoting teachers? Is money better spent on teacher training than on smaller class-size? How do theory and empirical statistical data intertwine in building structures of understanding? This book is inspired by the career and personal influence of the Swedish scholar Professor Jan-Eric Gustafsson, renowned for his research on individual differences, especially the structure of cognitive abilities, and on the effects of education on knowledge and skills.

Quickly acquire the knowledge and skills you need to confidently administer, score, and interpret behavioral assessment tests

Behavioral assessment tests analyze and assess a broad range of behavioral problems found among children and adolescents, including hyperactivity, impulsivity, and ADHD. To use these tests properly, professionals need an authoritative source of advice and guidance on how to administer, score, and interpret them. Cowritten by leading experts in the behavioral assessment field and the creators of the BASC (Behavioral Assessment System for Children), Essentials of Behavioral Assessment is that source.

Like all the volumes in the Essentials of Psychological Assessment series, this book is designed to help busy mental health professionals quickly acquire the knowledge and skills they need to make optimal use of major psychological assessment instruments. Each concise chapter features numerous callout boxes highlighting key concepts, bulleted points, and extensive illustrative material, as well as test questions that help you gauge and reinforce your grasp of the information covered.

Essentials of Behavioral Assessment is the first book to provide state-of-the-art interpretive and administrative guidelines to using the BASC, CRS-R (Conners’ Rating Scales-Revised), and CBCL (Achenbach Child Behavior Checklists), the leading and most highly recognized behavioral assessment tests used in the field. The authors also offer expert assessment of the tests’ merits and include classroom observations.

Other titles in the Essentials of Psychological Assessment series:

Essentials of WJ IIITM Tests of Achievement Assessment
Essentials of WJ IIITM Cognitive Abilities Assessment
Essentials of WMS®-III Assessment
Essentials of Individual Achievement Assessment
Essentials of Nepsy® Assessment
Essentials of Cross-Battery Assessment
Essentials of Cognitive Assessment with KAIT and Other Kaufman Measures
Essentials of Nonverbal Assessment
Essentials of WISC-III® and WPPSI-R® Assessment

Science, Pseudo-science, Non-sense, and Critical Thinking shines an unforgiving light on popular and lucrative 'miraculous' practices that promise to offer answers during times of trouble. Throughout the book, the authors unfold the fallacies underlying these practices, as well as consumers' need and desire to believe in them. Adopting a scientific approach, the book critically evaluates research into cold-reading practices, such as those that claim to be able to communicate with the afterlife or posess supernatural powers, before considering a range of pseudo-sciences including graphology and polygraph interrogation, exposing the pretensions of these practices in a clear and logical fashion. The book seeks to encourage critical thinking throughout, asking whether there is any scientific evidence to support these practitioners' abilities to supply us with reliable answers, and discussing the various factors that comprise the psychological mechanism of belief. Written in a fluent and accessible style, Science, Pseudo-science, Non-sense, and Critical Thinking is aimed at interested professionals and the public at large.

The research articles in this volume cover timely quantitative psychology topics, including new methods in item response theory, computerized adaptive testing, cognitive diagnostic modeling, and psychological scaling. Topics within general quantitative methodology include structural equation modeling, factor analysis, causal modeling, mediation, missing data methods, and longitudinal data analysis. These methods will appeal, in particular, to researchers in the social sciences. The 80th annual meeting took place in Beijing, China, between the 12th and 16th of July, 2015. Previous volumes to showcase work from the Psychometric Society's Meeting are New Developments in Quantitative Psychology: Presentations from the 77th Annual Psychometric Society Meeting (Springer, 2013), Quantitative Psychology Research: The 78th Annual Meeting of the Psychometric Society (Springer, 2015), and Quantitative Psychology Research: The 79th Annual Meeting of the Psychometric Society, Wisconsin, USA, 2014 (Springer, 2015).

The goal of this guide and manual is to provide a practical and brief overview of the theory on computerized adaptive testing (CAT) and multistage testing (MST) and to illustrate the methodologies and applications using R open source language and several data examples. Implementation relies on the R packages catR and mstR that have been already or are being developed by the first author (with the team) and that include some of the newest research algorithms on the topic. The book covers many topics along with the R-code: the basics of R, theoretical overview of CAT and MST, CAT designs, CAT assembly methodologies, CAT simulations, catR package, CAT applications, MST designs, IRT-based MST methodologies, tree-based MST methodologies, mstR package, and MST applications. CAT has been used in many large-scale assessments over recent decades, and MST has become very popular in recent years. R open source language also has become one of the most useful tools for applications in almost all fields, including business and education. Though very useful and popular, R is a difficult language to learn, with a steep learning curve. Given the obvious need for but with the complex implementation of CAT and MST, it is very difficult for users to simulate or implement CAT and MST. Until this manual, there has been no book for users to design and use CAT and MST easily and without expense; i.e., by using the free R software. All examples and illustrations are generated using predefined scripts in R language, available for free download from the book's website.

This book introduces multidimensional scaling (MDS) and unfolding as data analysis techniques for applied researchers. MDS is used for the analysis of proximity data on a set of objects, representing the data as distances between points in a geometric space (usually of two dimensions). Unfolding is a related method that maps preference data (typically evaluative ratings of different persons on a set of objects) as distances between two sets of points (representing the persons and the objects, resp.). This second edition has been completely revised to reflect new developments and the coverage of unfolding has also been substantially expanded. Intended for applied researchers whose main interests are in using these methods as tools for building substantive theories, it discusses numerous applications (classical and recent), highlights practical issues (such as evaluating model fit), presents ways to enforce theoretical expectations for the scaling solutions, and addresses the typical mistakes that MDS/unfolding users tend to make. Further, it shows how MDS and unfolding can be used in practical research work, primarily by using the smacof package in the R environment but also Proxscal in SPSS. It is a valuable resource for psychologists, social scientists, and market researchers, with a basic understanding of multivariate statistics (such as multiple regression and factor analysis).

Assessing Risk: A Relational Approach offers the practitioner a novel framework for understanding the complex and subtle issues involved in assessing and managing risks related to violence and sexual offending. The authors draw on their considerable experience working with high risk individuals in assessment and treatment. They have for many years consulted to practitioners in forensic mental health services and the criminal justice system and taught renowned courses at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. This book outlines a comprehensive model of risk which draws on mainstream empirical research, threat assessment, developmental psychopathology, attachment theory, and a relational model derived from psychoanalysis. The framework incorporates intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions and is designed to enhance the reader's capacity to make a thorough risk formulation. The approach highlights the significance of childhood development in understanding violent and sexually violent acts, and the complicated interpersonal processes involved in managing individuals who have a propensity to violent enactment. These dynamic processes between people impact on risk and risk perception, and can distort judgement if not recognised and understood. Assessing Risk will be of practical use in enhancing the skills of professionals to assess and manage risk in a comprehensive and effective way, and will appeal to all those mental health and criminal justice practitioners working with risky individuals.

This book serves as an up-to-date Rorschach primer and elaborates on the various applications of Rorschach assessment for adolescents with respect to differential diagnosis, forensic consultation, and therapeutic assessment. It opens with three chapters that provide readers with a basic overview and introduction to the topics integrated throughout the text. The first reviews the development and foundations of the Rorschach Inkblot Method; the second discusses key issues in the assessment of adolescents, with particular attention to differentiating patterns of psychopathology from normal developmental variations; and the third presents general considerations in using performance-based assessment instruments in the assessment of personality functioning in adolescence. Later chapters explore the current status of the Rorschach Inkblot Method with respect to theoretical formulations, research findings, and practice guidelines. The final chapter draws on information in the preceding chapters to present a model for Rorschach assessment of adolescents. This model is designed to facilitate accurate and useful formulations of personality functioning that contribute substantially to advancing responsible adolescent development.

This volume presents a manual for a new method of studying implicit attitudes, the Test of Implicit Associations in Relationship Attitudes (TIARA). The main goal of this volume is to demonstrate how to study the implicit attitudes that people have toward others in their close relationships: friend, romantic partner, family member, etc. Since the inception of the concept and measures of implicit cognition, researchers have developed a number of indirect measures to assess implicit attitudes. These similar yet different methods aim to account for different variables for reliable and valid operational definitions of implicit attitudes. Given the progress made in the field of implicit measures, there is great potential for further development and extension of these types of assessments. Many of these methods (especially the Implicit Attitude Test) are only limited to assessing attitudes within the comparison of two bipolar concepts. Therefore, TIARA was developed to be a manual for a new method of studying implicit attitudes in relationships. As described in this volume, TIARA shows that if a person strongly believes that certain feelings can be attributed to a target relationship figure, the reaction time is shorter since they are the most confident in their answer. Beginning with a grounded explanation of the theory behind TIARA, the volume then proceeds to explain its methods and procedures, and how to code, score, and interpret the results of TIARA. Next, the volume reports on six psychometric studies, which provide substantial evidence that TIARA is a valid and reliable measure to study implicit attitudes in relationship research. The volume concludes by exploring practical applications of TIARA as well as its future directions and current limitations. The detailed description of the TIARA method provides a practical and handy tutorial for using the method in research and practice for social and personality psychologists, as well as practitioners.

This unique text provides a step-by-step beginner's guide to applying the Rasch model in R, a probabilistic model used by researchers across the social sciences to measure unobservable ("latent") variables. Each chapter is devoted to one popular Rasch model, ranging from the least to the most complex. Through a freely available and user-friendly package, BlueSky Statistics, Lamprianou offers a range of options for presenting results, critically examines the strengths and weaknesses of applying the Rasch model in each instance, and suggests more effective methodologies where applicable. With a focus on simple software code which does not assume extensive mathematical knowledge, the reader is initially introduced to the so-called simple Rasch Model to construct a "political activism" variable out of a group of dichotomously scored questions. In subsequent chapters, the book covers everything from the Rating Scale to the Many-facets Rasch model. The final chapter even showcases a complete mock manuscript, demonstrating how a Rasch-based paper on the identification of online hate speech should look like. Combining theoretical rigor and real-world examples with empirical datasets from published papers, this book is essential reading for students and researchers alike who aspire to use Rasch models in their research.

Gian-Marco Schmid investigates how musicians perceive the experiential quality of musical instruments using a bottom-up psychometric questionnaire development process and finds that there are three main factors on which musicians base their evaluation of musical instruments: (1) experienced freedom & possibilities, (2) perceived control & comfort and (3) perceived stability, sound quality & aesthetics. This structure is similar to research regarding the conceptualization of violin quality. It is therefore suggested that musicians who use different instruments tend to have an analogical concept of instrument quality.

Autism Spectrum Disorder Assessment in Schools serves as a guide on how to assess children for autism spectrum disorders (ASD), specifically in school settings. Dilly and Hall offer a general overview of ASD, describe ASD assessment best practices, and explain the process of identifying ASD in schools. Current research and up-to-date science is incorporated in a practitioner-friendly manner, and short case vignettes will increase the accessibility of the book content and illustrate principles. As the rates of ASD reach 1/59 children, and school psychologists are increasingly expected to possess expertise in the assessment of ASD, this book serves as a must have for school psychologists, school social workers, and other practitioners.

This book provides an introduction to test equating, scaling and linking, including those concepts and practical issues that are critical for developers and all other testing professionals. In addition to statistical procedures, successful equating, scaling and linking involves many aspects of testing, including procedures to develop tests, to administer and score tests and to interpret scores earned on tests. Test equating methods are used with many standardized tests in education and psychology to ensure that scores from multiple test forms can be used interchangeably. Test scaling is the process of developing score scales that are used when scores on standardized tests are reported. In test linking, scores from two or more tests are related to one another. Linking has received much recent attention, due largely to investigations of linking similarly named tests from different test publishers or tests constructed for different purposes. In recent years, researchers from the education, psychology and statistics communities have contributed to the rapidly growing statistical and psychometric methodologies used in test equating, scaling and linking. In addition to the literature covered in previous editions, this new edition presents coverage of significant recent research. In order to assist researchers, advanced graduate students and testing professionals, examples are used frequently and conceptual issues are stressed. New material includes model determination in log-linear smoothing, in-depth presentation of chained linear and equipercentile equating, equating criteria, test scoring and a new section on scores for mixed-format tests. In the third edition, each chapter contains a reference list, rather than having a single reference list at the end of the volume The themes of the third edition include: * the purposes of equating, scaling and linking and their practical context * data collection designs * statistical methodology * designing reasonable and useful equating, scaling, and linking studies * importance of test development and quality control processes to equating * equating error, and the underlying statistical assumptions for equating

This volume presents contributions on handling data in which the postulate of independence in the data matrix is violated. When this postulate is violated and when the methods assuming independence are still applied, the estimated parameters are likely to be biased, and statistical decisions are very likely to be incorrect. Problems associated with dependence in data have been known for a long time, and led to the development of tailored methods for the analysis of dependent data in various areas of statistical analysis. These methods include, for example, methods for the analysis of longitudinal data, corrections for dependency, and corrections for degrees of freedom. This volume contains the following five sections: growth curve modeling, directional dependence, dyadic data modeling, item response modeling (IRT), and other methods for the analysis of dependent data (e.g., approaches for modeling cross-section dependence, multidimensional scaling techniques, and mixed models). Researchers and graduate students in the social and behavioral sciences, education, econometrics, and medicine will find this up-to-date overview of modern statistical approaches for dealing with problems related to dependent data particularly useful.

The 77th Annual International Meeting of the Psychometric Society (IMPS) brought together quantitative researchers who focus on methods relevant to psychology. The conference included workshops, invited talks by well-known scholars, and presentations of submitted papers and posters. It was hosted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and took place between the 9th and 12th of July, 2012. The chapters of this volume are based on presentations from the meeting and reflect the latest work in the field. Topics with a primarily measurement focus include studies of item response theory, computerized adaptive testing, cognitive diagnostic modeling, and psychological scaling. Additional psychometric topics relate to structural equation modeling, factor analysis, causal modeling, mediation, missing data methods, and longitudinal data analysis, among others. The papers in this volume will be especially useful for researchers (graduate students and other quantitative researchers) in the social sciences who use quantitative methods, particularly psychologists. Most readers will benefit from some prior knowledge of statistical methods in reading the chapters.

This book combines an overview of validity theory, trends in validation practices and a review of standards and guidelines in several international jurisdictions with research synthesis of the validity evidence in different research areas. An overview of theory is both useful and timely, in view of the increased use of tests and measures for decision-making, ranking and policy purposes in large-scale testing, assessment and social indicators and quality of life research. Research synthesis is needed to help us assemble, critically appraise and integrate the overwhelming volume of research on validity in different contexts. Rather than examining whether any given measure is "valid", the focus is on a critical appraisal of the kinds of validity evidence reported in the published research literature. The five sources of validity evidence discussed are: content-related, response processes, internal structure, associations with other variables and consequences. The 15 syntheses included here, represent a broad sampling of psychosocial, health, medical and educational research settings, giving us an extensive evidential basis to build upon earlier studies. The book concludes with a meta-synthesis of the 15 syntheses and a discussion of the current thinking of validation practices by leading experts in the field.

The 78th Annual Meeting of the Psychometric Society (IMPS) builds on the Psychometric Society's mission to share quantitative methods relevant to psychology. The chapters of this volume present cutting-edge work in the field. Topics include studies of item response theory, computerized adaptive testing, cognitive diagnostic modeling, and psychological scaling. Additional psychometric topics relate to structural equation modeling, factor analysis, causal modeling, mediation, missing data methods, and longitudinal data analysis, among others. The papers in this volume will be especially useful for researchers in the social sciences who use quantitative methods. Prior knowledge of statistical methods is recommended. The 78th annual meeting took place in Arnhem, The Netherlands between July 22nd and 26th, 2013. The previous volume to showcase work from the Psychometric Society's Meeting is New Developments in Quantitative Psychology: Presentations from the 77th Annual Psychometric Society Meeting (Springer, 2014).

The presentation of mental illness at work has different implications and consequences depending on the specific nature of the job, work context, regulatory framework and risks for the employee, organisation and society. Naturally there are certain occupational groups where human factors and/or mental illness could impair safety and mental acuity, and with potentially devastating consequences. For pilots, the medical criteria for crew licensing are stipulated by regulatory aviation authorities worldwide, and these include specific mental illness exclusions. The challenge of assessment for mental health problems is, however, complex and the responsibility for psychological screening and testing falls to a range of different specialists and groups including AMEs (authorised aviation medical examiners), GPs and physicians, airline human resources departments, psychologists, human factor specialists and pilots themselves. Extending and developing the ideas of Aviation Mental Health (2006), which described a range of psychological issues and problems that may affect pilots and the consequences of these, this book presents an authoritative, comprehensive and practical guide to modern, evidence-based practice in the field of mental health assessment, treatment and care. It features contributions from experts in the field drawn from several countries, professions and representing a range of aviation-related organisations, displaying a range of different skills and methods that can be used for the clinical assessment of pilots and in relation to specific mental-health problems and syndromes.

First published in 1940, as the fourth edition of a 1911 original, this book forms part of The Cambridge Psychological Library series. The text is divided into two main sections, with the first part discussing aspects of psychophysics and the second focusing on the area of correlation. Detailed notes and numerous tables are contained throughout. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of psychology and mental measurement.

This book provides first time insight into whether emotions impact performance of an online ability test. This question is gaining in relevance as online assessment is used increasingly in personnel selection and since it has been shown that emotions impact the way humans think. Moreover, the author demonstrates, for the first time, how short film clips can elicit different emotions in an online setting. Furthermore, she gives an overview of the area of online assessment, of models of intelligence and emotion, and of how emotion and cognition interact.

The field of psychometrics has a long and varied tradition across the social sciences. A range of academics have sought to understand human consciousness more fully by statistical testing our abilities, personalities, attitudes and beliefs. But perhaps the area where psychometric techniques have had most impact on contemporary society is in employee recruitment, where a range of psychometric tests have become common-place. Professor Peter Saville is one of the pioneers of adapting psychometric testing to the field of occupational psychology and human resource management. In a career of nearly 40 years, his work has been adopted by hundreds of public and private organizations, assessing the suitability of prospective candidates through a range of questionnaires and tests. In this anthology of his work, including both keynote conference address and journal papers, Saville provides a masterly overview of the field of psychometrics, and the key issues and questions that it raises. An ideal companion for any student or researcher of HRM, occupational or organizational psychology, or applied psychology in general, Peter Saville's selected works represent the thinking of one of the most influential psychologists of our time.

This new edition surveys the full range of available structural equation modeling (SEM) methodologies. The book has been updated throughout to reflect the arrival of new software packages, which have made analysis much easier than in the past. Applications in a broad range of disciplines are discussed, particularly in the social sciences where many key concepts are not directly observable. This book presents SEM's development in its proper historical context-essential to understanding the application, strengths and weaknesses of each particular method. This book also surveys the emerging path and network approaches that complement and enhance SEM, and that are growing in importance. SEM's ability to accommodate unobservable theory constructs through latent variables is of significant importance to social scientists. Latent variable theory and application are comprehensively explained and methods are presented for extending their power, including guidelines for data preparation, sample size calculation and the special treatment of Likert scale data. Tables of software, methodologies and fit statistics provide a concise reference for any research program, helping assure that its conclusions are defensible and publishable.

Cluster analysis is a multivariate classification technique that allows for identification of homogenous subgroups within diverse samples based on shared characteristics. In recent years, cluster analysis has been increasingly applied to psychological and neuropsychological variables to address a number of empirical questions. This book provides an overview of cluster analysis, including statistical and methodological considerations in its application to neurobehavioral variables. First, an introduction to cluster analysis is presented that emphasizes issues of relevance to neuropsychological research, including controversies surrounding it use. Cluster analysis is then applied to clinical disorders that do not have an associated prototypical neuropsychological profile, including traumatic brain injury, schizophrenia, and health problems associated with homelessness. In a second application, cluster analysis is used to investigate the course of normal memory development. Finally, cluster analysis is applied to classification of brain injury severity in children and adolescents who sustained traumatic brain injury.

The definitive resource for psychological diagnosis, updated with the latest research Adult Psychopathology and Diagnosis offers comprehensive coverage of psychological disorders and presents a balanced integration of empirical data and diagnostic criteria to aid in understanding diagnosis and psychopathology. Designed to support students of clinical psychology, counseling, nursing, and social work, this invaluable resource merges overviews, case studies, and examination of individual disorders in an accessible format that facilitates easy reference. Broad-reaching issues such as interviewing and cross cultural considerations are discussed in detail for their effect on the clinical presentation of every disorder and case studies illustrate how diagnoses are reached and applied in real-world clinical settings. Updated to reflect the latest advances in research, this new 8th Edition includes new coverage of personality disorders, a new chapter on the Research Diagnostic Criteria (RDOC), new authors for a number of the chapters, and contributions by leaders in the field to provide students with exceptional insight into psychopathology and diagnosis. Get up to date on the latest research based on DSM-5 categorization Easily locate and retain information with a proven chapter structure Examine a new alternative DSM-5 model for personality disorders Include cross-cultural considerations throughout investigation and diagnosis In clarifying DSM-5 classification and diagnostic guidelines while integrating leading-edge research with a case study approach, this book provides the most complete, most up-to-date reference for graduate students and practitioners alike. Thorough coverage of essential topics such as neurological foundations, dual diagnoses, eating disorders, anxiety, gender issues and more provides both theoretical insight as well as practical understanding, making Adult Psychopathology and Diagnosis once again a top resource for the field.

In today's rapidly changing and information-rich world, students are not acquiring adequate knowledge and skills to prepare them for careers in mathematics, science, and technology with the traditional approach to assessment and instruction. New competencies (e.g., information communication and technology skills) are needed to deal successfully with the deluge of data. In order to accomplish this, new "educationally valuable" skills must be acknowledged and assessed. Toward this end, the skills we value and support for a society producing knowledge workers, not simply service workers, must be identified, together with methods for their measurement. Innovative Assessment for the 21st Century explores the faces of future assessment-and ask hard questions, such as: What would an assessment that captures all of the above attributes look like? Should it be standardized? What is the role of the professional teacher?