Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Revised (WISC-R) Verbal, Performance, and Full Scale IQ's were compared with Bannatyne recategorized WISC-R scores for groups of non-handicapped, educationally disadvantaged, learning disabled, and regular classroom Navajo Indian children. No definitive evidence was found to support the use of the…

Forty-six tests from the Kit of Factor-Referenced Cognitive Tests, published by the Educational Testing Service, were used in an investigation of the factor structure of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. The overall kit contains 72 fairly short tests that have been developed to serve as markers for 23 factors that appear in the…

To help Education Consolidation and Improvement Act Chapter 1 personnel work more effectively with test publishers, a survey was conducted of selected publishers of norm-referenced tests commonly used by Chapter 1 Local Educational Agencies (LEAs). The test publishers included: (1) CTB/McGraw-Hill; (2) The Psychological Corporation; (3) the…

The Rasch model was used to compare the grade equivalent scores which students of equal ability would have obtained, had they taken different levels of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS). Raw scores on items common to levels 9-14 of the ITBS (vocabulary subtest) were obtained from 6,000 students in Dallas, Texas. Rasch scales were used to…

Since grade-appropriate levels of standardized achievement tests must frequently be used in Elementary and Secondary Education Act Title I evaluations, there may be large discrepancies between test difficulty and the achievement level of those being tested, with resultant inaccuracies in the scores. Procedures based on the Rasch scaling model were…

For Title I evaluations, it may be appropriate to test out-of-level; that is, to override publisher's recommendations concerning the difficulty, length, and content appropriate for a particular grade. It is seldom necessary, however, to move more than one grade down. If the mean is substantially higher than the median, then some pupils will have…

Statistical equating of scores from direct writing assessments is performed in Maryland to hold the difficulty of passing the Maryland Writing Test (MWT) equivalent from year to year and to allow a demonstration of growth in student writing achievement over the years. Passage of the test is a high school graduation requirement. Prior to…

Twelve common errors which can invalidate an otherwise sound evaluation are identified, and ways to avoid them are presented. The hazards are: (1) grade-equivalent scores; (2) inappropriate statistical adjustments with nonequivalent control groups; (3) administering norm-referenced tests at inappropriate times of the school year; (4) inappropriate…

To what degree testing can become adaptive is considered in three ways: from a formal methodological perspective; from a human process, stability, perspective; and from a sub-system or component view within an adaptive instructional system (AIS). With the advent of large computer-based training systems, the opportunity to broadly implement…