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This report contains the results of a predictive validity study, which examined the relationship between the employment status of a group of temporary contract operatives in a British factory, 90 days after being hired (N = 50) and their scores on the Employee Reliability Inventory. Scores were systematically related to employment status. Operatives who were involuntarily dismissed by their employer for unauthorized absence, lateness, or poor performance had poorer scores than those who remained on the job. Some preliminary benefit-cost implications are discussed.

This study presents a comparison of reporting of drug use and related attitudes and beliefs by national samples of eighth and tenth grade students under two different modes of administration conditions: confidential and anonymous. The results show that there were clearly no differences between the conditions in tenth graders' reports of drug use and related attitudes and beliefs. With eighth graders, the results show, at most, only a very modest mode of administration effect and quite possibly no effect at all. The results are reassuring to researchers who conduct surveys of drug use and related attitudes and beliefs among secondary school students.

Self-report measures require respondents to comprehend the inquiry and then engage the self. Two studies investigated how these 2 processes affect the answers produced. In Study 1,480 participants completed a locus-of-control scale describing themselves, their best friend, or Bill Cosby. Item answers became more reliable as the items moved from the beginning to the end of the measure. The similar increase for self, friend, and Cosby suggested that exposure to the content, rather than self-engagement, was driving the reliability shift. Self-engagement did activate an actor-observer difference in scale means. Study 2 focused on the content engagement process. With more item experience, respondents were better able to distinguish that prototypic items belonged to the locus-of-control scale and that distractor items did not. These studies imply that early questions clarify the meaning of a measure and improve the reliability of later answers.

This study examines whether observers reliably categorize selected speech production behaviors in hearing-impaired children. A group of experienced speech-language pathologists was trained to score the elicited imitations of 5 profoundly and 5 severely hearing-impaired subjects using the Phonetic Level Evaluation (Ling, 1976). Interrater reliability was calculated using intraclass correlation coefficients. Overall, the magnitude of the coefficients was found to be considerably below what would be accepted in published behavioral research. Failure to obtain acceptably high levels of reliability suggests that the Phonetic Level Evaluation may not yet be an accurate and objective speech assessment measure for hearing-impaired children. KEY WORDS: reliability, hearing-impaired, intraclass correlation, speech

Ratings gathered from expert raters under nearly deal conditions (world class judges of the figure skating competition at the 1984 Olympics) were examined for evidence of reliability and validity. In general, the results suggest that the ceiling on rating reliability and validity may be higher than indicated by previous research. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)