This manual contains technical information about the ACT® college readiness assessment. The principal purpose of this manual is to document the technical characteristics of the ACT in light of its intended purposes. ACT regularly conducts research as part of the ongoing formative evaluation of its programs. The research is intended to ensure that…

This manual was written to provide technical information regarding the General Educational Development (GED®) test as evidence that the GED® test is technically sound. Throughout this manual, documentation is provided regarding the development of the GED® test and data collection activities, as well as evidence of reliability and validity. This…

This is the second guide of the Cutting Edge Series and is designed to help colleges apply strategies that will allow successful institutional change and student achievement initiatives to reach more students. Section 1 of this guide lays out the most common obstacles to successful scaling and serves as a sobering reminder of the complexity of the…

This manual contains information about the American College Test (ACT) Plan® program. The principal focus of this manual is to document the Plan program's technical adequacy in light of its intended purposes. This manual supersedes the 2011 edition. The content of this manual responds to requirements of the testing industry as established in the…

This paper is concerned with the development of a measure of the precision of a multidimensional euclidean structure. The measure is a precision index for each point in the structure, assuming that all the other points are precisely located. The measure is defined and two numerical methods are presented. (Author/CTM)

This guide presents information and clinical tools to implement the Anger Coping Program, an empirically supported intervention for students in grades 3-6. Practitioners are taken step by step through setting up treatment groups, teaching vital skills for reducing aggression and disruptive behavior, and building strong partnerships with teachers…

Reliability maximizing weights are related to theoretically specified true score scaling weights to show a constant relationship that is invariant under separate linear tranformations on each variable in the system. Test theoretic relations should be derived for the most general model available and not for unnecessarily constrained models.…

Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) is proposed as a viable research methodology for use by organizational scientists. Presents a brief description of the method and discusses past uses of the methodology. Describes possible uses for MDS in the areas of construct development and schema recovery. (Author)

This paper discusses problems associated with the application of experimental methods to program evaluation, proposes an alternative approach (program-attribute scaling), and reports the procedure and results of a trial application of the alternative approach. (Author)

Cliff's Index "c" derived from an item dominance matrix is utilized in a clustering approach, termed extracting Reliable Guttman Orders (ERGO), to isolate Guttman-type item hierarchies. A comparison of factor analysis to the ERGO is made on social distance data involving multiple ethnic groups. (Author/BW)

Methodological issues which confront researchers using the concept of the family career include the selection of appropriate dependent variables; the efficacy of historical versus immediate effects; and scaling the family career (a proposed replacement for the "family life cycle"). The issue of which dependent variables should be…

In Rasch terminology, two or more tests are linked when they are joined into a pool related to a single scale. When the same item calibrates at a low level on one test and a high level on a second test, it indicates that the item is low on the first test because the other items on that test are higher, and is high on the second test because the…

The Riley Inventory of Basic Learning Skills (RIBLS) is a group test that assesses 12 learning process skills in 5 general modalities (visual, auditory, verbal, kinesthetic, and abstract). The RIBLS is intended for administration to groups or individuals from age 6 to adulthood in two levels: a lower level for those who cannot read or are under…

Drawing from the information presented at a conference sponsored by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Technology in Education Consortium, educators, researchers, and policymakers translate theory into practice to provide a hands-on resource that describes different models for scaling up success. This resource…

This score interpretation guide is designed to help administrators and classroom teachers understand the scores and scales of the 1994 and Beyond Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP). MSPAP scale scores indicate a school's level of performance in the content areas of reading, writing, language usage, mathematics, science, and…