Educational Measurement
Year:2010 | Volume:1 | Issue:3|Papers Count:7

The present research aims to investigate the role of motivational and attitudinal components on math achievement and compile a structured model for first year high school students in Urumiyeh city. The sample group comprised 300 first year high school students in Orumiyeh city. In order to gather data and determine the level of participants' math achievement, their math scores of the first semester was used. In analyzing data, method of analysis route, using LISREL software, the effects of direct and indirect effects and general self-concept variables, father' education level of mathematics, interest in mathematics, parental support and gender stereotyping were discussed. The results showed that the role of self-concept variables, father' education level, parental support and the importance of mathematical on math achievement was meaningful. Further, the self-concept variables and the education of his father's direct progress with mathematical lesson was significant. The other results in this research for index fit and proper research with data was considerable.

The present research is mainly focused on how to standardize and prepare a short form for MMPI-2 questionnaire among Iranian university students. The sample consists of 3578 college students (1763 male and 1815 female) at different educational levels (AA, BA, MA, and PhD) from eight provinces, who were selected via multistage cluster sampling procedure. An Iranian and shortened version of MMPI-2 consisting of 370 questions was used. To investigate the construct validity of Iranian Shortened Version of MMPI-2, and to evaluate its reliability the principal components factor analysis and Oblimin oblique rotation was used. Results showed that Cronbach's Alpha coefficient as an index of reliability was 0.84 at first. This coefficient was increased to 0.96 through the omission of some questions with a weak co-efficient correlation. Among the remaining 156 questions, thirteen factors were extracted using factor analysis, Oblimin oblique rotation, skewing diagram and explained variance percentile. These factors, as a whole, explained 40.15 percent of the total variance of the variables. The naming of the factors was according to the original MMPI-2 including: Psychasthenia (PT), Frequency (F), Hypomania (Ma), Schizophrenia (Sc), Correction (K), Hypochondriasis (Hs), Hysteria (Hy), Paranoia (Pa), Depression (D), Lie (L), Psychopathic deviate (Pd), Social introversion-extroversion (Si), and Masculinity-Femininity (Mf). General findings indicate that the shorted form of MMPI-2 qualifies psychometric properties for clinical use and research activities in Iranian culture, especially in university settings.

This study examined the psychometric properties of a Persian translation of the Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Attitudes Scales among a sample of 400 Iranian high school students. A structural equation modeling strategy via Lisrel 8 (with item parceling procedure) was employed in estimating parameters. In addition, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to assess construct validity of the nine latent variables, with each latent variable measured by 12 observed variables. The results of this study indicate an acceptable fit between the proposed model and the observed data. From all the 108 items (measured variables), 91 items correlated with their respective factors at a reasonably strong level. In general, the Persian translation of the FSMAS has acceptable psychometric properties. The fit of the proposed confirmatory factor analytic model provides evidence for the scale’s construct validity. The sample used in the present study may be minimally representative of the general population and replication is needed.

Most commonly employed IRT models are based on three assumptions of monotonicity, unidimensionality and local/conditional independence. Monotonicity asserts that the higher the ability the higher the correct response probability. Local independence means that the response to any item is unrelated to any other item when trait level is controlled; and unidimensionality means that all items of test, measure only one trait or latent variable. Violating unidimensionality assumption may lead to a serious misestimation of items and persons parameters or standard errors. In addition, unidimensionality is necessary and important for clear interpreting of test scores and comparing persons, as well as for some psychometrics works such as test equating. Despite of importance of unidimensionality assumption in IRT models, there is no agreement among psychometricians concerning the definition and assessing of unidimensionality. Given the role and importance of local independence in defining and determining new methods for assessing test dimensionality, in this paper in addition doing a literature review on local independence and introducing several methods for assessing unidimensionality in dichotomous IRT models, we used NOHARM and DIMTEST methods to assess unidimensionality of a set of test data and both methods resulted in similar results. Given the present literature and results from NOHARM and DIMTEST, we maintain that researchers should now be starting to move from reporting heuristic indices such as "variance accounted for by the first factor" or "ration of first to second eigenvalue" and start implementing the new procedures that tackle these issues in a much more sophisticated manner such as, NOHARM, TESTFACT, DIMTEST, DETECT, H&R, and MSP.

The aim of this study is to study the of validity and reliability of the Questionnaire Assessing Organizational Innovation. The sample was a totall of 308 managers from educational administers in Tehran City. The results of this study showed that opportune reliability and validity for Questionnaire Assessing Organizational Innovation. The internal consistency coefficient (Chronbach, s alpha) for Questionnaire Assessing Organizational Innovation obtained 0.83. This was relatively high level of Chronbach. S alpha showed relatively high level of reliability. Correlation results among Questionnaire Assessing Organizational Innovation subscales showed convergence at measurement of single phenomenon. The positive correlation of the Questionnaire Assessing Organizational Innovation showed opportune convergent validity.

The purpose of this study was to prepare a primary scale which can be used in further extensive studies for preparing normative scale to assess enneagram personality types of Iranian university students in relation to native culture. To achieve this aim, at first, all subjects participated in enneagram training class for ten sessions and we deeply surveyed the Riso-Hudson enneagram. Then, questions based on native culture and enneagram theory were developed. This scale was administered to 20 university students. The results of this pilot study demonstrated that certain questions need be changed and some should be deleted. This scale and RHETI test were simultaneously administered to 110 university students. The subjects were randomly selected from Oromiyeh University. The data were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, Cronbach, s alpha, KMO, Bartlett, Confirmatory analysis, principal component analysis with Varimax rotation and Pearson correlation. The findings proved that this scale can have some useful applications.

The purpose of this research is to develop ao instrument for learners' entrance readiness assessment to an e-learning course. The entrance characteristics of e-learner are one of the important inputs in e-learning environment that affects in process and product. The research population consists of the Iranian e-learning expertise and trainee boys that enrolled in the public and private Technical and Vocational Training Organization in summer, 1388. For the sample selection of among e-learning expertise, the criterioncentered sampling, and for trainees population, the multistage cluster sampling were used. With studying the background of research five factor and 37 items were extracted and sent to the iranian e-learning expertise to determine the content validity. The data were collected by questionnaire and interview. The results showed that the 5 determined factors by expertise were confirmed and some of the items were changed in details and general. Then to determine the reliability of the tool, the questionnaires were distributed among 60 technical and vocational trainees and analyzed. Correlation analysis with the total items showed (0.89) was calculated and two of the items had lower correlation with the total items. These two late items were omitted and the questionnaire was distributed among 540 trainees again and 412 questionnaires were gathered finally. Data analysis showed that Kranbakh alpha coefficient among items related to the first factor (0.90) and the related items to second factor (0.75), the items related to third factor (0.77), the related items to fourth factor (0.83) and related items to fifth factors (0.82) and total alpha coefficient Kranbakh items equal (0.92). The date analysis result in the factor analysis method showed that the five identified factors and the related items to them have correlation to.