The teaching of English as a foreign language in Indonesia has a long history, and it is always important to ask whether the assessment of the students' language skills has been valid and reliable. A screening of many articles in several prominent databases reveal that a number of evaluation studies have been done by Indonesian scholars in the…

This work describes a systematic review of the research on take-home exams in tertiary education. It was found that there is some disagreement in the community about the virtues of take-home exams but also a lot of agreement. It is concluded that take-home exams may be the preferred choice of assessment method on the higher taxonomy levels because…

As test standards and research literature in general indicate, definitions of test bias and item bias vary considerably, as do the results of existing methods of identifying biased items. The situation is further complicated by issues of content, context, construct, and criterion. In achievement tests, for example, content validity may impose…

Specifying and writing appropriate items for student writing assessments is an exacting task. All too frequently, however, teachers approach this task by reading a skill statement and hurriedly writing a few items with correct answers combined with several distractors. This approach disregards the essentials of isolating a single skill for…

The literature on item bias, i.e., the question of whether some items in tests favor one cultural group over another cultural group due to irrelevant factors, is reviewed and evaluated. All known references through 1981 are described including a large number of unpublished reports. Each method is described and the criticisms that have appeared in…

Details the steps followed in the development of the Basic Skills Word List. (FL)

In recent years, the controversy surrounding testing has grown, and the charge of bias is the most often cited criticism of testing and assessment. A review of the literature indicates that psychometricians and other researchers speak of bias as a property of the test or of items in the test. Conversely, test critics speak of bias as a quality or…

Statistical bias in measurement and ethnic-group bias in testing are discussed, reviewing predictive and construct validity studies. Item bias is reconceptualized to include distance of item content from respondent's experience. Differing values of mean and standard deviation for bias parameter are analyzed in a simulation. References are…

Meaningful and relevant tests of oral competence in foreign languages must address problems impeding communicative competence such as lack of student motivation, unimaginative questions, inhibitive personal questions, and pictorial tests. Examples of test questions are presented in French. (CB)

To show the difficulty of eliminating test bias and to develop a methodology for distinguishing between the effects of prior knowledge and of skill development on reading comprehension, 207 eighth grade students from rural and urban areas were administered an 18-question reading comprehension test. Quantitative and qualitative effects of prior…

An analysis and discussion of regulations in the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act focus on policy issues concerning requirements for language proficiency and knowledge of United States history and government for immigrant amnesty. Five specific issues are addressed: 1) the discriminatory effect of requiring only amnesty applicants to…

Interest in applied performance testing and concern about the quality of the high school diploma are finding a common ground: graduation requirements. A competency is a complex capability applicable in real life situations, and can be used as program objectives in a competency-based, criterion-referenced program. In such a program, applied…

Computerized adaptive testing (CAT) has become increasingly common in large-scale testing programs. This paper considers relevant practical issues that are likely to be faced by the developers and managers of a CAT program. The first cluster of issues is that of item pool development and maintenance. It includes such considerations as item pool…

Computer adaptive testing systems are feasible for certification and licensure testing. This is in part due to the availability of extensive yet inexpensive computers. Modern item response theory, combined with computerized adaptive testing, yields a powerful new method of testing which provides greater accuracy and efficiency and less boredom for…

Studies of the mathematics assessments of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are summarized. One study found that omit rates for NAEP test items were higher for African Americans and Hispanics than for whites. The other found that descriptions and examples for the 1992 mathematics achievement levels were misleading. (SLD)