The present study aimed to describe and evaluate the current assessment practices prevalent in the different translation courses offered at the College of Languages and Translation (COLT). A sample of specialized translation final exams in 18 translation subject areas was collected. Each final exam was analyzed in terms of the following: (1) # of…

Leader self-efficacy (LSE) is a construct studied in adults and college students which is associated with leader emergence, individual performance, and group performance. However, to date, it has not been heavily examined in youth. Therefore, a five-item youth LSE scale was created which can aid in further research of this construct. This holds…

This study presents the processes of developing and establishing reliability and validity of a reading test by administering an integrative approach as conventional reliability and validity measures superficially reveals the difficulty of a reading test. In this respect, analysing vocabulary frequency of the test is regarded as a more eligible way…

Background: Readability tests are indicators that measure how easy a document can be read and understood. Simple, but very often ignored, readability statistics cannot only provide information about the level of difficulty of the readability of particular documents but also can increase an evaluator's credibility. Purpose: The purpose of this…

Suggests that the popular and simple readability formulas may not be accurate enough to predict the instructional materials best suited to the reading abilities of secondary school students. (FL)

A comparison of the difficulty in underlying structure of basal reading texts with the difficulty in surface structure raises questions on the validity of the Fry Readability Formula and other traditional readability formulas. (CJ)

Validates the college-level designation of the Fry Graph using comparative validity data. (AEA)

Test validity issues considered by test developers and school districts rarely include individual item readability levels. In this study, items from a major standardized test were examined for individual item readability level and item difficulty. The Homan-Hewitt Readability Formula was applied to items across three grade levels. Results of…

Reveals that the Rauding Scale of Prose Difficulty provides results closer to Spache and Dale-Chall values than does the Singer Eyeball Estimate of Readability (SEER) technique. (FL)

Validity, the most critical of readability formula characteristics, requires that a measuring device actually measure what is intended to be measured. To examine validity, a study was conducted in which ten popular handbooks used in the teaching of college freshman composition were examined for comparative validity data--the extent to which scores…

The Flesch reading formula is questioned as being appropriate for evaluating college economics textbooks. The Dale-Chall, Modified Dale-Chall, Fry, and Flesch formulas were used to evaluate nine introductory textbooks. There was little or no consistency in either the absolute reading levels or the rank orderings. (Author/AM)

Evaluates the practicability of the Singer Eyeball Estimate of Readability (SEER) techniques with 32 college students. Reveals that only two of the students met SEER's criterion for being considered acceptable judges. Concludes that the criterion is overly stringent and proposes a revised criterion designed to make the SEER technique more…

Rescales DRP-Difficulty (Degrees of Reading Power) into grade equivalent (GE) units using the estimated difficulty level values obtained from the Rauding Scale. Finds the revised scale is accurate to within one graded level for lower grade materials and to within two grade levels for upper grade materials. (MM)

Noting that four of the six most common readability formulas use the McCall-Crabbs Standard Test Lessons in Reading as the independent criterion of difficulty to establish validity, while the other two often site their correlation with the first four to determine validity, a study examined whether these lessons consisted of passage selections…

Offers a case study of how one teacher used readability formulas to select the most appropriate materials for her students. Presents 10 suggestions that the teacher followed to avoid being tyrannized by the formulas. (FL)