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The objective of this article is to describe the possible elements of comprehension that affect the response to new items on a verbal reasoning test. The starting point was the verbal report of a group of thirteen students obtaining high and low scores on an academic aptitude test at Universidad de Costa Rica. An exploratory qualitative study identified five irrelevant elements for comprehension: lexicon, rhetoric, length, very specific context, and use of previous knowledge, which affect the response to items of reasoning in the verbal context. The recognition of these aspects was a result of the research project, which aimed at determining the elements of the sentence, instructions, or detractors that hindered comprehension, and defining their relationship to the difficulty assigned by the test-taker. The suggestion was made to use the verbal report to generate evidence of validity for an admissions test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research analyzes the internal structure of the Evaluation of Teaching Competence Questionnaire, the product of a rigorous methodological process of accumulation of evidence of validity and reliability. The questionnaire is based on the Evaluation of Teaching Competencies Model (MECD--acronym in Spanish). Unidimensionality tests were replicated (n=128,791) and AFE (n=67,111), with the results showing that 32 items assess the same construct. Meanwhile, the internal structure revealed two factors: planning and management of the teaching-learning process; and directing and valuating the teaching-learning process. A total variance of 75.02% and Cronbach's alpha of .98 were obtained. The structure was tested with structural equation modeling (n=462), which resulted in RMSEA=.07, SRMR=.02, CFI and TLI=93. The study concludes that the questionnaire integrates the components of teaching competence that are significant for students and demonstrated its representativeness with the MECD dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]