We employed qualitative research methods to examine student learning in context during a teacher's unit on 1920s-Great Depression in an 11th grade United States & Virginia History class in a standards-based setting with a high-stakes end-of-course test. We focused on four focal students (all of whom were classified as English learners at some…

University settings present a unique opportunity for young adults to develop characteristics constitutive of wisdom. One challenge for educators working to support this development involves effectively measuring these characteristics. In this article, we present results from a secondary analysis of cognitive interviews to examine challenges that…

As validity pertains to test use rather than the test itself, using a test for unintended purposes requires a new validation program using additional evidence from relevant sources. This small-scale study contributes to the validation of the use of originally academic language tests--the International English Language Testing System and the Test…

This article contains two measurement development studies on writing apprehension. Study 1 reexamines the validity of the writing apprehension measure based on the finding from prior research that a second false factor was embedded. The findings from Study 1 support the validity of a reduced measure with 6 items versus the original 20-item…

This article reports on a mixed-method study that examined the washback of a local integrated theme-based high-stakes English language proficiency test that is used in a university English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program in Turkey. The assumption behind employing an integrated theme-based test, which resembles authentic language use, was that…

The TOWRE-2 was developed to provide an efficient measure of two essential wordlevel reading skills, sight word reading and phonetic decoding skills. The Sight Word Efficiency (SWE) subtest assesses the number of real words that an individual can read from a vertical list within 45 s. This subtest is designed to measure the size of an individual's…

Language test preparation has often been studied within the consequential validity framework in relation to ethics, equity, fairness, and washback of assessment. The use of independent and integrated speaking tasks in the "TOEFL iBT"® test represents a significant development and innovation in assessing speaking ability in academic…

Students in an introductory college course (n=275) responded to equivalent 20-item halves of a test under number-right and formula-scoring instructions. Formula scores of those who omitted items overaged about one point lower than their comparable (formula adjusted) scores on the test half administered under number-right instructions. In contrast,…

High school sophomores' (N=1,717) self-reported coursework and grade information for 26 courses was collected as part of a fall 1991 Preliminary American College Test Plus (P-ACT+) administration. Students were from 55 high schools. The accuracy with which students reported courses taken and grades earned was investigated by comparing this…

In spring 1996, Arizona's Glendale Community College (GCC) undertook an evaluation of an introductory macroeconomics course using the national Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE III). Specifically, the study sought to determine how GCC student outcomes compared to national results on the TUCE III and if the college's macroeconomics…

In spring 1996, Arizona's Glendale Community College (GCC) undertook an evaluation of a microeconomics course using the national Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE III). Specifically, the study sought to determine how GCC student outcomes compared to national results on the TUCE III and if the microeconomics course made a statistical…

Three papers are included in this document. The first, "An Introduction to the Problem of Test User Qualifications," by Kevin L. Moreland, is a short history of the American Psychological Association (APA)/American Educational Research Association (AERA)/National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) Working Group on Test User…

A test battery termed "Assessment of Reading and Language Maturity" (ALARM) contains 15 subtests designed to cover the major and minor elements involved in assessing and promoting progress toward reading-language-thinking and social-emotional maturity. Although still undergoing development, ALARM has been administered to and partially…

A synthetic performance test is a job performance test that has been degraded to some degree in the range of tasks covered or in the fidelity of stimulus/response features. Since further development is needed before synthetic performance testing is valid and efficient, this research project focused on three objectives: to (1) identify problems…

A study was undertaken to improve the measurement of small team performance within the Army. A provisional taxonomy of team-level performance functions was field-validated; criteria and measures of the functions were developed; and their reliability was examined. The provisional taxonomy, used for observing Army field training exercises, was used…