Measuring depression in adolescence: Evaluation of a hierarchical factor model of the Children's Depression Inventory and measurement invariance across boys and girls.

Background: One of the most widely used instruments to measure depression in childhood and adolescence is Kovacs's Children's Depression Inventory (CDI). Even though this particular measure sparked massive interest among researchers, there is no clear consensus about its factorial structure. It has been suggested that inconsistencies in findings can be partly ascribed to the cultural context.

The role of perfectionism in predicting athlete burnout, training distress, and sports performance: A short-term and long-term longitudinal perspective.

This study examined the influence of perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns on athlete burnout and two key indicators of overtraining syndrome (training distress and subjectively perceived sports performance) using cross-sectional (N = 228), short-term (a 3-month interval, N = 93) and long-term (a 1-year interval, N = 83) longitudinal designs on a sample of adolescent athletes. In the cross-sectional analyses, sequential regressions revealed that perfectionism was a significant predictor of athlete burnout and both indicators of overtraining. In the three-month longitudinal perspective, both dimensions of perfectionism (strivings and concerns) contributed to the prediction of change in burnout and sports performance, but not training distress.

Innovative testing of spatial ability: interactive responding and the use of complex stimuli material.

Despite initial expectations, which have emerged with the advancement of computer technology over the last decade of the twentieth century, scientific literature does not contain many relevant references regarding the development and use of innovative items in psychological testing. Our study presents and evaluates two novel item types. One item type is derived from a standard schematic test item used for the assessment of the spatial perception aspect of spatial ability, enhanced by an interactive response module.

Experimental evaluation of tachistoscopic measurement: a step beyond Wundt's criticism.

This study was designed to assess the possible systematic bias in measurements obtained using tachistoscopic devices from different historical periods of psychological research. Four different tachistoscopic devices were used for brief presentations of stimuli in a letter recognition task. The research sample consisted of 24 participants (12 female, 12 male) in a within-subject experimental design with complete counterbalancing of 4 conditions defined by 4 instrument types: fall tachistoscope, tachistoscope with camera-like shutter, and computer-based tachistoscopes with cathode ray tube and liquid crystal diode display screens.