Orientador: Carina Alexandra Rondini / Resumo: O estudo sobre as Altas Habilidades/Superdotação (AH/SD) na perspectiva da educação inclusiva tem gerado discussões acadêmicas, em especial quanto a necessidade de sinalização/identificação destes estudantes para uma prática pedagógica efetiva. Dentre os desafios dessa prática que interferem diretamente na avaliação dos estudantes, encontra-se a falta de instrumentos validados e normatizados para o contexto brasileiro. Para tanto, o objetivo desse trabalho pautou-se na adaptação para o contexto brasileiro e na busca por evidências de validade de conteúdo das Scales for Rating the Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students (SRBCSS-III), elaboradas por Joseph Renzulli e cols. Os procedimentos para realização do processo incluiram: tradução, síntese, retrotradução (backtranslation), revisão por um comitê de especialistas e avaliação semântica com o público-alvo (professores). Os resultados apontaram alto grau de concordância dos itens pelo Comitê de Juízes especialistas, medido pelo Índice de Validade de Conteúdo - IVC (87%), bem como alto grau de concordância verificado por meio da Análise Semântica realizada com os professores (90%), o que ampara um instrumento de fácil compreensão ao seu público-alvo. / Abstract: The study on high abilities/giftdness in the perspective of inclusive education has generated major academic discussions, especially regarding the need for signaling/ identification of these students for an effective pedagogical practice. Among the challenges of this practice that directly interfere in the evaluation of students, is the lack of validated and standardized instruments for the Brazilian context. Therefore, the purpose of this work was to translate and validate to the Brazilian context the Scales for Rating the Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students (SRBCSS-III), elaborated by Joseph Renzulli. Procedures for carrying out the process included: translation, synthesis, backtranslation, review by a committee of experts and semantic validation with the target audience (teachers). The results showed a high degree of concordance between the items by the Expert Judges Committee, measured by the Content Validity Index (IVC) (87%), as well as a high degree of agreement verified through the Semantic Analysis performed with teachers (90%), which provides an easy-to-understand tool for your target audience. / Mestre

IntroductionThe STARx Questionnaire was designed with patient and provider input, to measure self-management and transition skills in adolescents and young adults (AYA) with chronic health conditions. With proven reliability and an empirically-based factor structure, the self-report STARx Questionnaire requires further validation to demonstrate its clinical and research utility. In this study we examine the concurrent, predictive, and discriminant validity of the STARx Questionnaire.MethodsTo examine concurrent validity, the STARx Questionnaire was compared to two other published transition readiness tools. Predictive validity was examined using linear regressions between the STARx Total Score and literacy, medication adherence, quality of life, and health services use. Discriminant validity was examined by comparing the performance of three chronic illness conditions on the STARx Total Score and associated subscales.ResultsThe STARx Questionnaire and its subscales positively correlated with the scores for both transition readiness tools reflecting strong concurrent validity. The STARx Questionnaire also correlated positively with the literacy, self-efficacy, and adherence measures indicating strong predictive validity; however, it did not correlate with either quality of life or health care utilization. The performance of AYA across three different clinical conditions was not significant, indicating the clinical utility of this HCT tool for a variety of chronic health conditions.ConclusionThe strong validity of the STARx Questionnaire, in tandem with its strong reliability, indicated adequate psychometric properties for this generic self-report measure. These strong psychometric properties should contribute to the STARx being a viable measure of health care transition for both research and clinical purposes.

The Borg Ratings of Perceived Exertion (RPE) Scale has proven to be a highly popular instrument in measuring the subjective responses of individuals to a given work or exercise task. Historically, the instrument was designed to correlate highly with the heart rates in young-to-middle-aged men performing various tasks. The body of literature, however, has revealed inconsistencies in the extent of just how strong the relationship is between ratings of perceived exertion and various physiological criterion variables, most notably, heart rate. In addition, most studies have invoked the question of whether the criterion-related validity coefficients derived from the relationship between ratings of perceived exertion and a specified physiological criterion variable are just as valid as those for which the Borg RPE Scale was originally performed. A meta-analysis, therefore, was undertaken to determine the magnitude of the relationship between ratings of perceived exertion scores and each of three commonly used physiological measures or criterion variables: heart rate, blood lactate, and oxygen uptake. Results show that by using Tests of Homogeneity for each physiological criterion variable, the observed sample size-weighted validity coefficients are heterogeneous. The median of the mean sample size-weighted validity coefficients is .574 for heart rate, .561 for blood lactate, and .480 for oxygen uptake. Each study in the meta-analysis was grouped by the study characteristics of subject gender, fitness level, RPE Scale, exercise type, exercise protocol, and study quality. For heart rate, the highest validity coefficients are those in which the subjects are highly fit, the exercise type is fairly unusual, such as swimming, and the subjects are required to maximally exert themselves. For blood lactate, the highest validity coefficients are for females, healthy-inactive subjects, the 15-point RPE Scale, treadmill use, and swimming. For oxygen uptake, the highest validity coefficients between ratings of perceived exertion and oxygen uptake are for swimming. In a meta-analysis of study effects, when the validity coefficients are analyzed by study, the resultant mean validity coefficients are only somewhat higher (ratings of perceived exertion and heart rate, .657; ratings of perceived exertion and blood lactate, .642; ratings of perceived exertion and oxygen uptake, .609) than those obtained using sample size-weighted validity coefficients. Finally, corrections for bias generally resulted in increased validity coefficients and decreased variances.

Orientador: Stelio Pacca Loureiro Luna / Resumo: Introdução. A terapia adequada da dor requer uma avaliação apropriada do fenômeno. Este estudo avaliou a UNESP-Botucatu e a Escala Ortopédica (CPS) em comparação com escalas unidimensionais em equinos. Material e Método. Para cada um dos 42 pacientes cirúrgicos, as avaliações foram realizadas e gravadas em vídeo antes da cirurgia, até 4 horas após a cirurgia, até 3 horas após o tratamento analgésico e 24 horas após a cirurgia. Os videos editados e randomizados foram visualizados por cada um dos seis avaliadores duas vezes, em um intervalo de 20 dias. Após a visualização de cada videoclipe, os avaliadores primeiro registraram se a analgesia seria indicada e, em seguida, aplicaram as escalas Visual Analógica, Numérica Simples, Descritiva Simples, CPS e UNESP-Botucatu. Foram avaliadas a confiabilidade intra e interobservador, validade de critério, correlação item-total, responsividade, sensibilidade e especificidade, consistência interna e ponto de corte da analgesia de resgate. Resultados. Para todas as escalas, a confiabilidade intra-observador variou de boa a muito boa. Tanto a escala UNESP-Botucatu quanto a CPS apresentaram confiabilidade intra-observador geral boa ou muito boa. A confiabilidade interobservador geral, baseada na segunda das duas avaliações variou, foi variável com validade de critério boa (UNESP-Botucatu) e moderada (CPS) quando comparada às escalas unidimensionais. A análise de componentes principais mostrou fraca associação entre os itens. A correlação de ... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Background Proper pain therapy requires adequate pain assessment. Objective This study evaluated the UNESP-Botucatu and the Orthopedic Composite Pain Scale (CPS) compared with unidimensional scales in horses. Material and Methods For each of 42 surgical patients evaluations were performed and videotaped before surgery, up to 4 hours post-surgery, up to 3 hours after analgesic treatment, and 24 hours post-operatively. Edited and randomized video clips were viewed by each of six evaluators twice, at an interval of 20 days. After viewing each video clip, the evaluators first recorded whether analgesia would be indicated, and then applied the Visual Analog, Simple Numeric, Simple Descriptive, CPS, and UNESP-Botucatu scales. Intra- and inter-observer reliability, criterion validity, item-total correlation, responsiveness, sensitivity and specificity, internal consistency, and rescue analgesia cut-off point were evaluated. Results For all scales, intra-observer reliability ranged from good to very good. Both the UNESP-Botucatu scale and the CPS presented overall good or very good intra-observer reliability. Overall inter-observer reliability based on the second of the two viewings was variable with good (UNESP-Botucatu) and moderate (CPS) criterion validity when compared to unidimensional scales. Principal Component Analysis showed weak association among the items. Spearman correlation was 0.67 (p < 0.0001) between the composite scales. Responsiveness occurred only to postoperative... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

Employee turnover disrupts organizational functioning, service delivery, and administration. The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore strategies that some college administrators used to reduce employee turnover in the workplace to increase profitability. The population for the study included 3 administrators in a senior (4-year) college in the southeastern region of the United States who developed and implemented successful strategies to reduce employee turnover. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with college administrators and from publicly available organizational documents. Transformational leadership was the conceptual framework for this study. Data analysis included inductive analysis guided by transformational leadership theory and member checking. Five themes emerged from data analysis including transformational leadership, incentives and rewards, training/career development, establishing trust/employee empowerment, and effective communication. The implications of these findings for social change may benefit students, faculty, and administrators of educational institutions. The findings may enhance consistent and superior educational course delivery to students, improve collaboration between educators and administrators through effective hiring practices to raise the caliber of educator skillsets, and reduce the percent of unemployed as a result of students succeeding in higher education and gaining meaningful employment. The findings may help reduce financial insecurity and improve the living standards of people in the community, while encouraging prospective learners to attain a postsecondary education.

The main purpose of this study was to compare the strategies used by Chinese- speaking students when confronted with familiar versus unfamiliar topics in a multiple-choice format reading comprehension test. The focus was on describing what students do when they are taking reading comprehension tests by asking students to verbalize their thoughts. The strategies were further compared with participants' level of familiarity with different reading topics and their reading scores. Twenty Chinese-speaking participants at the University of Iowa performed three tasks: a topical knowledge vocabulary assessment that served as an indicator of each participant's topical knowledge about the four selected content areas in this study (law, business, language teaching, and engineering); two Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) internet-based test (iBT) practice reading comprehension passages, one with a familiar topic and the other with an unfamiliar topic, and both with retrospective think-aloud protocols; and an interview related to participants' test-taking strategies. Two stages of analysis, qualitative and quantitative, were undertaken in this study. For the qualitative analysis, all verbal reports provided by participants in the think-aloud protocols and the interviews were recorded and transcribed. Six categories of strategies emerged: general approaches to reading the passages, identification of important information by the discourse structure of the passages, vocabulary/sentence-in-context approaches, multiple-choice test-management strategies, test-wiseness, and background knowledge. For the quantitative analysis, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures was completed to determine if there were significant differences based on the frequency of strategy use and level of topic familiarity. The results showed that the types of test-taking strategies adopted by Chinese-speaking graduate students remained similar when they read passages with familiar versus unfamiliar topics. However, participants all reported feeling more relief and more confidence when reading passages related to their background knowledge. The second ANOVA employed a split-plot statistical design to examine whether there were significant differences based on participants' strategy use and their reading scores as measured by the iBT reading comprehension tests. High scorers employed strategies in categories one, two, three, and four significantly more frequently than low scorers. However, low scorers adopted significantly more strategies in category five than high scorers. In category six, high and low scorers seemed to use a similar number of strategies. Findings that emerged from the two perspectives are discussed; implications related to test-taking and reading pedagogy are provided in the conclusion.

A relatively recent measure, the Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales (PKBS), has been developed to measure both problem behavior and social competence in young children. The primary purpose of this study was to examine the construct validity of the PKBS through the application of several validation procedures. Results of the study support construct validity of the PKBS. In a discriminant analysis, the PKBS classified correctly 89.36% of the 94 subjects. A secondary purpose of this study was to examine social-emotional behavior differences between kindergarten students who were divided into different behavioral status groups based on a teacher nomination procedure: a behaviorally at-risk group comprised of both internalizing and externalizing students and a comparison group of behaviorally typical students. Statistically significant differences were found between groups on most variables.

This study collected evidence to address the assumptions underlying the use of the Utah Core Assessment to Pre-Algebra (UCAP) to (a) measure student achievement in pre-algebra, and (b) assist teachers in making adjustments to instruction. An evaluative argument was defined to guide the collection of evidence. Each of the assumptions in the evaluative argument was addressed using data from a suburban northern Utah school district. To collect the evidence, test content was examined including item match to course objectives, reliability, and subtest intercorrelations. Analyses of correlations of the UCAP with convergent and discriminant measures were completed using student test data (N = 1,461), including an examination of both the pattern of correlations and tests of statistical significance. Pre-algebra teachers (N = 12) were interviewed to ascertain the degree to which UCAP results were used to make necessary adjustments to instruction. It was found that the UCAP was technically sound, but measured only 65% of course objectives. Correlation coefficients were analyzed using pattern comparisons and tests of statistical significance. It was found that the pattern of correlation coefficients and the distinction of convergent and discriminant measures supported the UCAP as a measure of mathematics. Teacher interview data revealed that teachers did not make substantive adjustments to the instruction of pre-algebra based on test scores. Based on these results it was concluded that the underlying assumptions concerning the use of the UCAP were not fully supported. The lack of complete coverage of the pre-algebra course objectives calls into question the ability of the UCAP scores to be used as measures of student achievement, in spite of the technical quality of the test. There was support for the assumption that the UCAP measures mathematics. There was little evidence that teachers use the UCAP score reports to make meaningful and appropriate adjustments to instruction. More evidence is needed to understand the factors that may have led to this lack of use. The evaluative argument framework defined in this study provides guidance for future research to collect evidence of the validity of decisions based on UCAP scores.

The worldwide eradication of lymphatic filariasis has recently started with two strategies, interruption of transmission and morbidity control. One of the most endemic countries, Haiti has experienced successful interventions through national and international efforts, but the morbidity control is still hindered by a lack of adequate information on quality of life (QOL) issues among those suffering from the chronic manifestations of the disease such as lymphedema. In addition, previous interventions have been focused primarily in a single community where an established lymphedema treatment clinic serves as a national reference center, so it is critical to expand programs to other areas in Haiti. The purpose of the study was to understand the issues of morbidity control and QOL among lymphedema patients due to lymphatic filariasis in three rural Haitian towns. Secondary data (n = 316) collected in an ongoing filariasis support group project was analyzed in terms of socio-demographic characteristics, including gender age, and regional perspectives. Also, two different commercial QOL instruments (EuroQol, CDC Healthy Days) and a subjective well-being assessment tool (CES-D) were introduced to describe their QOL and mental health status, respectively. The reliability and validity of the measurements were established at the same time. Regional differences were evident in patients illness history, knowledge of the illness, self-care and self-efficacy for legs, and major QOL indicators related to physical and mental health. Age of patients also influenced foot size, illness stage, and the QOL scores. However, other socio-demographic factors were poorly associated with filariasis related variables, including gender. The commercial QOL instruments and a standardized mental health tool satisfied a reasonable level of reliability and validity. Though additional discussion is needed regarding the validation of the mental health scales between EuroQol and the other instruments, they nevertheless offer utility for enhancing the quality of morbidity control programs. These findings offer a significant contribution for the development of filariasis prevention programs such as community-based morbidity control and support group activities in Haiti, as well as other areas of the filariasis-endemic world.

Validity generalization work over the past 25 years has called into question the veracity of the assumption that validity is situationally specific. Recent theoretical and methodological work has suggested that validity coefficients may be transportable even if true validity is not a constant. Most transportability work is based on the assumption that the distribution of rho ( ρi ) is normal, yet, no empirical evidence exists to support this assumption. The present study used a competing model approach in which a new procedure for assessing transportability was compared with two more commonly used methods. Empirical Bayes estimation (Brannick, 2001; Brannick & Hall, 2003) was evaluated alongside both the Schmidt-Hunter multiplicative model (Hunter & Schmidt, 1990) and a corrected Hedges-Vevea (see Hall & Brannick, 2002; Hedges & Vevea, 1998) model. The purpose of the present study was two-fold. The first part of the study compared the accuracy of estimates of the mean, standard deviation, and the lower bound of 90 and 99 percent credibility intervals computed from the three different methods across 32 simulated conditions. The mean, variance, and shape of the distribution varied across the simulated conditions. The second part of the study involved comparing results of analyses of the three methods based on previously published validity coefficients. The second part of the study was used to show whether choice of method for determining whether transportability is warranted matters in practice. Results of the simulation analyses suggest that the Schmidt-Hunter method is superior to the other methods even when the distribution of true validity parameters violates the assumption of normality. Results of analyses conducted on real data show trends consistent with those evident in the analyses of the simulated data. Conclusions regarding transportability, however, did not change as a function of method used for any of the real data sets. Limitations of the present study as well as recommendations for practice and future research are provided.