Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-2007

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Education

Major Professor

R. Steve McCallum

Committee Members

Tricia McClam, Sherry Bain, John W. Lounsbury

Abstract

The psychometric integrity of the UNIT - Gifted Screening Scale (UNIT -GSS; McCallum & Bracken, in press) was explored by examining Cronbach's Alphas for each of its scales (reliabilities ranged from .95 to .98). In addition, the concurrent validity was evaluated by comparing scores from non-academically oriented UNIT-GSS scales to other instruments that measure the same constructs for 106 2nd through 8th grade students, rated either by their teachers or themselves, on the UNIT-GSS, the Gifted Rated Scales (GRS; Pfeiffer & Jarosewich, 2003), and a self-report instrument designed to measure emotional intelligence, the Bar-On Emotional Quotient: Youth Version Short Form (Bar-On EQ-i: YV [S]; Bar-On & Parker, 2000). To assess concurrent validity of the UNIT-GSS academic scales, scores on and end-of-year achievement test, the Terra Nova Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS; CTB, 1996) were compared (to the academically oriented UNIT-GSS scales). Coefficients for "like" constructs ranged from .46 to .85 (p < .001). Finally, providing evidence of construct validity, all UNIT-GSS scale means for 53 students who participated in a Gifted and Talented program were significantly higher (p < .001) than their matched non-gifted peers.

Download
Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Included in

Education Commons

Share

COinS