According to two decades of research, parental sexual orientation does not affect overall child development. Researchers have not found significant differences between offspring of heterosexual parents and those of lesbian and gay parents in terms of their cognitive, psychological, or emotional adjustment. Still, there are gaps in the literature…

Letter name knowledge (LNK) is a key predictor of later reading ability and has been emphasized strongly in recent educational policy. Studies of LNK have implicitly treated it as a unidimensional construct with all letters equally relevant to its measurement. However, some empirical research suggests that contextual factors can affect the…

Developed a procedure for evaluating item-level nonresponse bias in questionnaire items using logistic regression to determine whether nonresponses are random or systematic in nature for one question from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1994 concerning drug use behaviors. Identified systematic nonresponses and the magnitude of…

Extended work in comparing item fit statistics and principal component analysis as tools for assessing the unidimensionality requirements of Rasch models and demonstrated methods to explore how violations of the unidimensionality requirement influence person measurement through 2 studies involving simulated rating scale data and responses to a…

Explores the interactions among measurement theories, reading theories, and measurement practices from a historical perspective. Describes a conceptual framework for examining the assessment of reading and reviews major research traditions in measurement theory in the 20th century. Also provides a brief history of the Rasch measurement theory in…

Examined the Type I error rate and the power of the Stout T procedure (DIMTEST) (W. Stout, 19987, 1990) and the Holland-Rosenbaum procedure (P. Holland and P. Rosenbaum, 1986) for normal and nonnormal data sets through a Monte Carlo study. Both procedures performed adequately under some conditions, but the Stout T procedure showed adequate power…

Tested the metric properties of a Spanish version of the Assessment of Growth Hormone Deficiency in Adults (AGHDA) questionnaire through Rasch analysis with a sample of 356 adult patients in Spain. Results suggest that the Spanish AGHDA could be a useful complement of the clinical evaluation of growth hormone deficiency patients at group and…

Evaluated the alternate forms reliability of new versus old tasks of the Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS) (A. Fisher, 1993). Participants were 44 persons from the AMPS database. Results support good alternate forms reliability of the motor and process ability measures and suggest that the newly calibrated tasks can be used reliably in…

Explored the measurement issues in a two-stage evaluation for an outstanding faculty award. Thirty college teachers were rated by 293 students using a newly developed inventory. Items fit a Rasch model fairly well, and the separation reliability for the teachers was high. A cut score was established, and a short version was developed. (SLD)