Steven J. Osterlind

Incidence and Practical Issues of Mental Health for School-Aged Youth in Juvenile Justice Detention

This study documents rates of youth referred for adjudication to a state juvenile justice system who have coexisting—and often unidentified—mental illnesses. The project examined records for 1,411 youth who were admitted over a 1-year period. All were screened with an instrument that allowed multidimensional appraisal along relevant mental health concerns. Approximately 70% of the youth exhibited a caution or warning in one or more (out of six) categories of mental health concern. These incidents were cross-referenced with categories of offense as well as incidents of using psychotropic medication. Sex, age, and ethnic heritage were also tracked. Results for each category show wide differences. Statistically, variances among the variables were analyzed by traditional general linear model techniques (e.g., ANOVA, regression) and differences in underlying constructs were confirmed by structural equation modeling. Schoolteachers, counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists, and policymakers can employ this information when working with youth in the juvenile justice system or those who are at risk.

What Is Constructing Test Items

Constructing test items for standardized tests of achievement, ability, and aptitude is a task of enormous importance—and one fraught with difficulty. The task is important because test items are the foundation of written tests of mental attributes, and the ideas they express must be articulated precisely and succinctly. Being able to draw valid and reliable inferences from a test’s scores rests in great measure upon attention to the construction of test items. If a test’s scores are to yield valid inferences about an examinee’s mental attributes, its items must reflect a specific psychological construct or domain of content. Without a strong association between a test item and a psychological construct or domain of content, the test item lacks meaning and purpose, like a mere free-floating thought on a page with no rhyme or reason for being there at all.

New Robust Scale Transformation Methods in the Presence of Outlying Common Items

Common items play an important role in item response theory (IRT) true score equating under the common-item nonequivalent groups design. Biased item parameter estimates due to common item outliers can lead to large errors in equated scores. Current methods used to screen for common item outliers mainly focus on the detection and elimination of those items, which may lead to inadequate content representation for the common items. To reduce the impact of inconsistency in item parameter estimates while maintaining content representativeness, the authors propose two robust scale transformation methods based on two weighting methods: the Area-Weighted method and the Least Absolute Values (LAV) method. Results from two simulation studies indicate that these robust scale transformation methods performed as well as the Stocking-Lord method in the absence of common item outliers and, more importantly, outperformed the Stocking-Lord method when a single outlying common item was simulated.

Style, Editorial, and Publication Guidelines for Items in the Multiple-Choice Format

When authors refer to style, they usually mean the expression of ideas in a smooth, orderly, pleasing manner. Each author develops an individual style of expression that allows for a personal presentation of his or her own thoughts and emotions. For editors, however, style connotes something different. Editorial style refers to the consistent use of a set of rules and guidelines. These rules and guidelines prescribe a consistent use of punctuation, abbreviations, and citations, a uniform and attractive format for tables, graphs, and charts, and a correct form for the many other elements that constitute written communication. Test-item writers are both authors and editors. As authors, they can express their ideas in novel, creative, and personal ways; as editors, they must be aware of and follow consistent editorial principles.

Ethical, Legal Considerations, and Final Remarks for Item Writers

This concluding chapter identifies and explains some elements of item construction that do not conveniently fit into any of the previously discussed categories yet are important, even overarching, elements of constructing good test items. These features include ethical concerns, considerations related to using copyrighted materials and obtaining copyright protection for one’s own items, and concerns for preparing or modifying items for use with people who have handicapping conditions. The chapter concludes with a final remark on the task of constructing meritorious test items.

Starting to Write Items: Practical Considerations

The preceding chapters described features of test items from a theoretical perspective. These discussions included a variety of topics, from a comprehensive description of a test item to various analyses involving requisite characteristics and conditions for good test items. The information in these chapters provides a foundation of knowledge necessary if one is to construct items that will contribute to sound measurement.

Determining the Content for Items: Validity

Determining the content for test items can be a perplexing experience. The item writer may search through textbooks or encyclopedias for grist to put into his or her item-writing mill, only to find that the result is an item whose content is trivial, pedantic, or arcane. Further, the item writer must not only find subject matter that is above the inconsequential, but in order to write items that tap complex cognitive processes, he or she must also judge the level of mental processing required of examinees to respond to a particular item. It is important to appreciate this point because determining appropriate content for items requires a complex view of items as measures not just of subject content but of psychological processes as well.

Style, Editorial, and Publication Guidelines for Items in Other Common Formats

Being familiar with the variety of formats in which test items can appear is one indication of a competent item writer. Familiarity with item formats means that writers understand the definition, structure, and advantages and criticisms for each of these item formats. It also means writers know the technical rules and the guidelines of editorial style for presentation of items in these formats. Whereas the preceding chapter presented information useful to understanding these features for items in the multiple-choice format, this chapter presents parallel discussions for items in several other popularly used formats, including true-false, matching, short-answer, sentences-completion, and cloze-procedure.

Judging the Quality of Test Items: Item Analysis

An item merely written is not complete. Once an idea for a test item has been conceived and articulated according to the rules for writing good items, the important task of determining its quality remains. If it is flawed, it must be improved or discarded. To accomplish such analysis for items, the writer must employ a precise methodology to systematically uncover information about an item, and then make judgments about it based on that information. In educational and psychological assessment, such judgments revolve around detecting and reducing errors in measurement, which can be in the form of either systematic bias or random error. This chapter explores the concept of measurement error first by explaining it and then by discussing strategies for determining the degree to which it may exist and how the sources for error can be reduced. By alleviating the causes of measurement error, the quality of particular test items correspondingly increases.

Definition, Purpose, and Characteristics of Items

An elementary rule for any writer is to know thoroughly the subject before beginning to write. This is the reason reporters ask questions, researchers investigate hypotheses, and novelists ponder their protagonists, all before they put pencil to paper. So too must writers of effective test items master their subject. Learning about test items means comprehending what test items are, understanding their purpose, and becoming familiar with their characteristics. Knowing the definition of a test item is the first step toward comprehending it. The definition forms the backbone upon which the purposes and characteristics of test items rest.