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A multiple-choice testing system that provides immediate affirming or corrective feedback and permits allocation of partial credit for proximate knowledge is suggested as an alternative to essay examinations.

The Carlson Psychological Survey is designed to assess and classify criminal offenders but its reliability has not been estimated for use with female adolescents. The survey was administered to 36 female adjudicated delinquents between the ages of 14 and 16 years and readministered after a 2-wk. interval to estimate test-retest reliability. Support for its stability over 2 wk. with this specific adolescent population was obtained.

Two new carefully constructed figure rating scales showed no greater validity than did the first such scale to be developed, as determined by the correlation between scale scores and body mass index and body weight.

Psychologists who report test results usually ignore the published data on the reliability of the test. When reliability is taken into account, the standard error of measurement is used to estimate the magnitude of the range around the observed score in which the true score is most likely to occur. It is assumed that the observed score is the best available estimate of the true score and that the standard error of measurement is the standard deviation of possible true scores around this observed score that could result from errors of measurement. Most textbooks of psychometrics notwithstanding, neither of these popular beliefs is correct. The correct procedure for estimating the most probable true score and the range of error associated with it is described, and the implications for psychological report writing are discussed.

This article reports on the development of a computerized, clinician-based method of assessing patient variables that contribute to differential assignment of psychotherapy models. In the current health care environment, omnibus personality tests and current state measures are both expensive and insensitive to most of the empirically defined patient characteristics that have been identified as indicators of different treatment qualities. Moreover, reliance on patient self-report introduces a variety of distortions and limits predictive studies and follow-up assessments to those who are cooperative. These factors limit the usefulness of the currently available procedures. Aptitude-Treatment-Interaction (ATI) research has revealed differential effects of manualized cognitive, interpersonal, and insight-oriented treatments as a function on a select number of relatively specific personality and symptom qualities. A cost- and time-efficient method of measuring these dimensions could increase the power of treatment by identifying in advance those that are likely to be most effective for a given patient. The STS (Systematic Treatment Selection) Clinician Rating Form is a relatively brief, clinician-based measure of a variety of patient dimensions, including subjective distress, various aspects of coping style, and resistance traits. Current data reveal good interrater reliability and adequate levels of discriminant and convergent validity.

Psychological assessment is a hybrid, both art and science. The empirical foundations of testing are indispensable in providing reliable and valid data. At the level of the integrated assessment, however, science gives way to art. Standards of reliability and validity account for the individual instrument; they do not account for the integration of data into a comprehensive assessment. This article examines the current climate of psychological assessment, selectively reviewing the literature of the past decade. Ethics, expertise, and validity are the components under discussion. Psychologists can and do take precautions to ensure that the 'art' of their work holds as much merit as the science.

There has been much debate among family scholars about how to define and measure relationship satisfaction. Much of the disagreement stems from two sources: how to define the construct of interest and whether to use a global or specific measure. The Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS) was developed to measure a single construct, namely one's subjective evaluation of a close relationship. This measure is not limited to marriage relationships and has shown strong predictive validity with dating couples. This study examined the criterion-related validity of the RAS by comparing Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) scores to RAS scores in a clinical population of 55 men and 63 women. Findings of zero-order and partial correlations and a multiple regression suggest a high degree of convergence between the two instruments, with the highest correlations being between the RAS total score and DAS total score, and the RAS total score and DAS Satisfaction subscale score. Implications for interpretation and use of RAS scores are discussed.

Validation data are described for the Social Support Inventory for People who are HIV Positive or Have AIDS. This inventory was developed specifically for use with individuals who are HIV-positive to assess three types of received support (instrumental, informational, emotional) for each of four dimensions: whether support is received or wanted, satisfaction with support, and source of the support. It was validated in the context of a larger cross-sectional study of 120 adults with HIV who completed a set of questionnaires. Descriptive statistics, internal consistency coefficients, and evidence of construct validity for the original inventory are presented. An improved, revised version based on the validation data for the original one is also briefly described, but not tested.

Short forms of WAIS-R using selected subtests were investigated with 80 university student volunteers. The short forms included Silverstein's (1982) two- and four-subtest short forms and the quick two- and four-subtest short forms of Kaufman, Ishikuma, and Kaufman-Packer (1991). The accuracy of short-form IQ estimates were compared for the short form administered first followed by the remaining subtests and the short form included in a standard full administration. Specific validity criteria were mean IQ difference, correlation between IQ scores, accuracy relative to the 95% confidence limits for Full Scale IQ, and correspondence between IQ categorizations. The results supported the concurrent validity of the four-subtest short forms. Just as importantly, the results confirm a 1986 study by Thompson, Howard, and Anderson which drew attention to some subtest short forms performing differently as discrete entities than when embedded in full administrations. The results of this study reiterate this concern for Silverstein's short form using two subtests but not for either of the short forms using four subtests.

The role of response stability in the measurement of coping is examined with a focus on the unique information that can be gleaned from low test-retest reliability ('inconsistency'). Data from two studies are presented in which a card sort measure of coping flexibility was used on people with three different chronic diseases and the elderly (n = 219). We begin by testing the hypothesis that the low stability reflects unreliability due to measurement artifacts, such as random error, low ecological validity, long test - retest interval, surrogate assistance, or error due to completing the questionnaire in multiple sittings. Our findings suggest that surrogate assistance in completing questionnaires was the only measurement artifact associated with low stability. We then tested the proposition that low stability reflects a genuine behavior pattern (i.e. inconsistency). Hierarchical modeling revealed that measurement artifact accounted for less than one percent of the variance in inconsistency in reported coping behavior and that an additional 21% of the variance could be explained by the behavioral factors, including neuropsychological problems (9%), psychological morbidity (4%), locus of control (3%) and eudaimonistic well-being (5%). Thus inconsistency in reported coping behavior was better explained by behavioral and psychosocial factors than by the tested measurement artifacts. We conclude that inconsistency in reported coping behavior does indeed reflect a meaningful behavior pattern, rather than simply measurement artifact.

The development and analyses of the psychometric characteristics of a tentative self-report measure of work addiction are reported. A total of 363 college students completed a battery of tests including the Work Addiction Risk Test. Internal consistency of the scores was .88. Also, these scores were compared with those on the Type A Self-rating Scale and the Jenkins Activity Survey, which give self-reports of Type A behavior and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. That scores on the work addiction risk test were reliable and showed concurrent validity supported psychometric utility for research and clinical practice.

An abridgement of the Adult Behavioral Classification Project Inventory (AdBCP) was accomplished. The creation and development of the full-scale Inventory is described in Phase I. In Phase II, the participant pool was divided into half, and each half of the data set was subjected to both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses with a factor control of 11 of the strongest factors in the original data set. Items identifying these factors had to have at least [absolute value of .35] factor structure weights, leaving a 42-item instrument, the Brief AdBCP Inventory. Predicting from the first half to the second half by confirmatory factor analysis resulted in a fair confirmation of the factor structure. A rough norm table is offered based on the factor scores of the first half of the participants' records.

The Brief Symptom Inventory was administered to 228 women (M age: 37) consecutively admitted to specialized inpatient treatment for trauma-related disorders. Subsamples of patients were administered different posttraumatic stress disorder scales, the Impact of Events Scale-Revised, the Posttraumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale, and the PTSD scale of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III, as well as a measure of child abuse and neglect, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. In this severely traumatized group, every scale of the Brief Symptom Inventory was significantly more elevated than the inpatient female norms, with the five most highly elevated scales being Depression, Obsessive-Compulsive, Anxiety, Interpersonal Sensitivity, and Psychoticism. Different indicators of trauma (Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, PTSD scales, and PTSD diagnosis) show different patterns of relationships with the individual scales of the Brief Symptom Inventory. There is no simple relationship between trauma and BSI symptoms, but clinicians should consider severe interpersonal trauma to be one pathway to pervasively elevated profiles of the Brief Symptom Inventory.

The Purpose in Life and Seeking Noetic Goals tests were administered to 198 rural Missouri and 659 metropolitan-area Washington high school students and readministered after an 8-week interval. The obtained test-retest and Cronbach alpha coefficients were largely consistent with earlier research using adult clinical samples.

For 220 married spouses correlations on the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale and the Quality Marriage Index of .90 and .95 suggested the scales may be adequate to measure marital quality.

Response to two issues raised by Dewe is provided. The tree diagram permits a different view of data and may be utilized with various models.

Due to several previous replications of increased internal consistency reliability associated with increases in the number of alternative per choice point, alternate forms test-retest reliability of self-ratings on a noncognitive scale was studies. Increased stability reliability associated with increases in the number of alternatives per choice point is discussed in terms of past research, theory and practical concerns.

The concept of 'decision-impact validity' was introduced and pertains to the contention that for a test to be useful it must affect decision making. Circumstances that appear to limit decision-impact validity were discussed.