This study was a pilot investigation of the initial validity of a newly developed behaviour-screening instrument for early intervention service providers. Group Special Education, Early Intervention (GSE/EI) (2005) adapted the Canterbury Behaviour Screening Protocol (CBSP) from a widely used behaviour-screening instrument the Early Screening Project. The CBSP consisted of 49 items in 2 checklists. GSE/EI identified 10 early childhood centres with a total roll of 712 to participate in the study. Staff were asked to categorise children's problem behaviours as either withdrawn/isolated or aggressive/oppositional, using profiles provided. Next, they were asked to nominate 2 children in each category, and an additional 2 children in either category, and to rank them from most concerning to least concerning. Centres identified 25 children in the withdrawn/isolated category, and 28 children in the aggressive/oppositional category. Staff completed checklists for children with parent/carer consent, which were scored according to preset protocols. Scores on the CBSP were assigned risk values ranging from "extreme" to "no risk". The estimated prevalence of "high" to "extreme" behaviour problems was 7.2% based on CBSP protocols and teacher nominations. The level of agreement between teacher rank and CBSP score was 79%, and this determined the initial specificity. Next, independent observations of the behaviour of the nominated children were conducted during free play periods at the centres by an observer blind to the children's nominated category, teacher ranking or checklist score. Risk levels were assigned based on the observation scores, using a cut-off value of 37% time spent in problem behaviour for girls and 40% for boys. There was agreement in terms of teacher rank and observation scores, (categorised into either "no risk" and "at/high/extreme risk) for 65% for children in the withdrawn/isolated category, and 75% for children in the aggressive/oppositional category. The level of agreement between the CBSP score and the observations (categorised into either "no risk" or "at/high/extreme" risk) was 40% for children in the withdrawn/isolated category, and 46% for children in the aggressive/oppositional category. Using the cut-off values, a prevalence estimate for high risk or extreme risk for behaviour disorders, based on independent observation of children, was 3.2%. Centre staff completing a feedback form determined the social validity of the CBSP. Although responses were generally favourable, a number of suggestions were also made to improve the procedure. Despite limitations in the design of the draft, the CBSP shows promise for a first step in a screening procedure designed to screen New Zealand early childhood centres for children who may be at risk for developing behaviour and/or social emotional problems. The independent observation may also be useful as a second step, prior to extensive eligibility assessment. A number of suggestions were made for future drafts such as addressing the limitations specified, conducting the CBSP with a greater number of children, and determining the concurrent validity, and test-retest reliability.

In order to test one implicit assumption of a neuropsychological theory concerning Complex Partial Seizure Disorder and affective-behavioral change, an instrument has been developed. The Perception of Affect Task (PAT) was created to fill an unmet need for an instrument which could assess the perception of affective stimuli across six emotions and neutral by: (1) allowing for a comparative analysis of perceptual abilities relative to the various emotions; (2) allowing for a comparative analysis of verbal and nonverbal perceptual abilities, thereby allowing for a potential analysis of enhancements and/or deficits by hemispheric laterality; and (3) assessing perceived intensity ratings of affective stimuli. As the PAT is to evaluate, in an upcoming study, CPS patients' deviations from normal perception-of-affect abilities, the present study serves to standardize this instrument with a college student sample.

The correlation coefficient between an ability test and achievement test is necessary in order to estimate the effects of the regression of IQ on achievement when calculating a discrepancy between them for the purpose of classifying a child as learning disabled. Weighted mean correlations and their respective variances were computed across studies for one of 11 ability-achievement test pairs using a meta-analysis procedure called Validity Generalization. The results indicated that there is no "global correlation coefficient" that will accurately represent the relationship between all ability and achievement tests. Furthermore, critical data necessary to adjust correlations and their respective variances for statistical artifacts were not reported in the literature. Thus, the results obtained from the subgroups could be due to capitalization on chance.

XML documents and related technologies represent widely accepted standard for managing and exchanging semi-structured data. However, surprisingly high number of XML documents is affected by well-formedness errors, structural invalidity or data inconsistencies. The aim of this thesis is the analysis of existing approaches resulting to the proposal of a new correction framework. The introduced model involves repairs of elements and attributes with respect to single type tree grammars. Via the inspection of the state space of an automaton recognising regular expressions, we are always able to find all minimal repairs. These repairs are compactly represented by recursively nested multigraphs, which can be translated to particular sequences of edit operations altering data trees. We have proposed four particular algorithms and provided the prototype implementation supplemented with experimental results. The most efficient algorithm heuristically follows only perspective repair directions and avoids repeated computations using the caching mechanism.

In some cases, as much as 9% of participants in self-report studies are extremely inattentive (Maniaci & Rogge, 2014). Previous researchers have dealt with this problem by removing inattentive participants from data analyses. A better solution would be to prevent inattentive responding. Self-Determination Theory may provide an effective approach to reducing inattentive responding, specifically by attempting to promote autonomous motivation in research participants. Providing participants with personalized feedback may increase participants’ autonomous motivation, which in turn may lead to more attentive responding. Study 1 showed that participants who are interested in feedback are more attentive throughout an online survey than participants who are not interested in feedback. The next goal was to show through experimental manipulation that emphasizing the opportunity to receive personalized feedback would decrease levels of inattentive responding and increase autonomous motivation. No significant difference occurred between groups in levels of inattention, nor in autonomous motivation. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Convergent validity has been used to evaluate the correlation between measurement tools. Delayed discounting has been used in order to determine the impulsivity in a variety of populations. Delayed discounting tasks have historically consisted of long, time consuming surveys. These tasks present participants with questions that relate to smaller sooner, or larger later rewards following various temporal delays. The purpose of the present study was to determine the convergent validity between a brief delayed discounting survey and a long, traditional version of the survey. The traditional survey consisted of 189 questions that contained 7 temporal delays and hypothetical money amounts. The brief survey was created based on the long survey but consisted of only 7 questions. Results from this study indicate that convergent validity did not exist between the two surveys. Keywords: delayed discounting, convergent validity, impulsivity

Investigating the possibility of customizing off-the-shelf tests to provide various kinds of information is becoming increasingly interesting due to high information demands in the current testing environment. Comparing examinee achievement status on a national basis using such tests may provide a cost-effective solution for some practical problems. However, the normative estimates based on customized tests may be very different from those based on intact tests, and the validity of customized norms may be seriously compromised. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of various factors on the validity of customized norms. These factors included customizing strategy, estimating items, test length, correlations of latent abilities assessed by items from an intact test and new items, and test dimensional structures. Monte Carlo simulation techniques were used to examine the accuracy of the customized norms. Both unidimensional and multidimensional data sets were generated and calibrated using unidimensional item response theory models. The five factors cited above were manipulated in a partially crossed design, with a total of 44 combinations of conditions. The outcomes of interest included estimated ability distributions and correlations, mean differences, mean absolute differences of ability and percentile estimates derived from intact tests and customized tests. Based on the results of this study, it was concluded that: (1) customized instruments with all items from intact tests provided more accurate normative estimates than instruments having some items from intact tests removed; (2) using only items from intact tests to derive norms yielded more accurate estimates than using all items in customized tests; (3) lengthened customized tests yielded more accurate estimates than shortened tests; (4) the higher the correlation of latent abilities measured by items from intact tests and new items, the more accurate the normative estimates; (5) the impacts of the various factors were small when the unidimensionality assumption was satisfied; the differences increased when data structures became more complicated.

The measurement of pain has had a growing importance in animals for both privately owned animals and those animals involved in clinical research. Lameness is considered to be 1 aspect of the pain experience. The ability of a veterinarian to assess lameness during a routine orthopedic examination can be difficult given the short amount of time in which the clinician can observe the animal, and the fact that the animal is in a stressful environment. Thus, the input of the owner concerning the animal's well-being over an extended time period may be extremely useful to the clinician in assessing the degree of lameness of the animal. It was the purpose of this study to establish an instrument that was both repeatable and valid in assessing the degree of lameness. The instrument used was a questionnaire containing 39 questions in a visual analog scale format. A force platform was used as the gold-standard for detecting mechanical lameness. Peak vertical, cranial-caudal, and their associated impulses were forces used to determine lameness, along with maximum slope in some cases. A test-retest measure of repeatability was conducted on a subset of 19 dogs that were confirmed to have less than a 10% change in vertical peak force. Nineteen of the 39 questions were found to be repeatable based on a Spearman rank correlation. These 19 questions were then used as predictor variables in several multiple regression models which predicted force plate measurements. The result was 3 different models each containing 7 independent variables that were thought to be valid representations of the forces measured (vertical peak, vertical impulse, and propulsion peak forces). Each reduced model was found to fit the data as well as the full model containing all 19 of the repeatable questions. The composite of 11 questions from the 3 different models was used to calculate a total score. This total score was found to be significantly correlated with force plate measurements. These 11 questions should be useful to a clinician in detecting the degree of lameness in the dog.

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The inclusion of all students in large-scale assessment mandated by the No Child Left Behind (2003) requires that these large-scale assessments be developed to allow all students to show what they know, and that the results are comparable and equitable across diverse cultural and linguistic populations. This study examined the validity of the 5th grade 2009 Science Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) for diverse cultural and linguistic groups. The student groups considered for this study were selected based on all the possible combinations of three variables: ethnicity--White and Hispanic, test language--English and Spanish, and Limited English Proficiency (LEP) classification. Validity was assessed at the item and construct levels, and was analyzed from a psychometric, cultural and linguistic stance. At the item level, Differential Item Function (DIF) was conducted using the Mantel-Haenszel procedure. The presence of biased items was revealed for all pairwise group comparisons; with a high number of DIF items between groups which differed in English proficiency (approximately 50% of the test items), and a low number of DIF items between groups which only differ in ethnicity (approximately 15% of the test items). However, an analysis of the Item Characteristic Curves (ICCs), revealed that items classified by the Mantel-Haenszel procedure as advantaging the LEP groups, did so for students at low proficiency levels; while the advantage at high proficiency levels was for non-LEP groups. At the construct level, the structure of the English version of the TAKS was compared across three student groups using Confirmatory Factor Analysis with Multiple Groups. The hypothesized structure based on the TAKS blueprint, was rejected for the Group conformed by White, non-LEP students (MLM[subscript x]²[subscript(734)] = 1042.110; CFI= 0.845; RMSEA= 0.020); but, it was a good fit for Hispanic, non-LEP (MLM[subscript x]²[subscript(734)] = 819.356; CFI= 0.980; RMSEA= 0.011) and LEP (MLM[subscript x]²[subscript(734)] = 805.124; CFI= 0.985; RMSEA= 0.010) Groups. The results obtained from this study call to reinterpret the achievement gap observed in TAKS scores between the populations considered, and highlight the need for further development of guidelines that can better help to develop fair large-scale tests for all students. / text