Many test developers try to ensure the content validity of their tests by having external experts review the items, e.g. in terms of relevance, difficulty, or clarity. Although this approach is widely accepted, a closer look reveals several pitfalls need to be avoided if experts' advice is to be truly helpful. The purpose of this paper is to…

States are increasingly interested in including measures of student achievement growth, or "value- added," in evaluating teachers. Annual state assessments, however, which are the typical measure of student growth, usually cover only reading and math teachers and only in grades 4-8. These state assessments thus cannot …

Reviews important milestones in the history of reliability, current issues related to reliability, and likely prospects for reliability from the perspective of what constitutes a replication of a measurement procedure. Pays special attention to the fixed/random aspects of facets that characterize replications. (SLD)

Part of a special issue on adaptive behavior, the article reviews adaptive behavior research in areas which include the relationship between adaptive behavior and intelligence and school achievement, relationship between different measures of adaptive behavior, predictive aspects, declassification, group differences in adaptive behavior,…

A discussion of evaluating informal logic competence centers on the identification of currently available tests and on a description of test theory, to aid in test selection. The following concepts in test theory are discussed: norm-referenced and criterion-referenced tests, true scores, reliability, validity, test selection and evaluation, test…

Conference speakers reviewed and analyzed the current thinking underlying the basic concepts of test norms, reliability, and validity. Roger T. Lennon's paper called for more attention to the development of norming theory and summarized current norming practices and the establishment of a system which would permit comparable norms for tests which…

This review covers a time span from 1922 to 1980. It examines the link that exists between assessment and teaching. After discussing the milieu in which the two take place, the remainder of the review addresses four questions: (1) how do teachers use test information for instructional decisions?; (2) what has research indicated about the linkage…