This qualitative study was based on grounded theory and used purposive sampling for selecting participants. The sample for this study included 12 of the 16 superintendents in this region. This rural Appalachian region has historically outperformed the remainder of the southeastern state on reading and math achievement tests at the elementary and…

Provides details on the instrument development, sample design, data collection, and data analysis procedures for the 1998 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) national and state assessments. Includes information necessary to show adherence to testing standards of professional organizations. (SLD)

Political and legislative pressures have posed a number of measurement issues and challenges to the development of sound, valid voluntary national tests (VNTs). This paper focuses on what appear to be the most difficult technical issues related to the VNT proposed by President Clinton in 1997. Technical issues refer to psychometric issues, as…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) measures the educational achievement of nationally representative samples of students in grades 4, 8, and 12. Local educational agencies tend to view the NAEP as a benchmark to which the educational achievement of their students can be compared. In particular, state departments of education…

Ohio's Statewide Needs Assessment is designed to provide baseline data about students' learning in cognitive areas. Over several years, students at various grade levels will be assessed. The areas to be assessed, as well as the grades of the students to be assessed, will be considered and advised upon by the ESEA Title III State Advisory Council.…

This report describes the comprehensive evaluation study of the California State Preschool Program which involved elementary school children in educationally disadvantaged areas throughout California. Various test scores of approximately 6000 children in kindergarten, first, and second grade who had previously participated for at least a year in…

The procedures and results of a pilot program in a statewide assessment of learning in Colorado are presented. Findings and conclusions of the project in which the Common Status Measures of the U.S. Office of Education were administered to 12,000 pupils in 31 school districts concurrently with objectives-referenced items developed by the Colorado…

The first of three self-contained studies in this report characterizes those who chose to take the California High School Proficiency Examination and those who passed. Characteristics of examinees' families, schools, and communities were also identified. In the second report, a school financial simulation model calculated district revenues which…

As part of a series of annual evaluations of the knowledge, understanding, skills, and attitudes of Massachusetts public-school students, this report represents the assessment of basic skills attainment of grade 12 students. The first three chapters contain a summary of the design and methodology of the testing program. The remaining five chapters…

South Carolina's School Incentive Reward Program Program (SIRP) based on year-to-year gains in reading and mathematics achievement, which seemed to have face validity, was evaluated, particularly its use of the relative gains of students in only the highest grade in the school as the basis for the awards. When this requirement was relaxed so that…

Results of the seventh year of testing by the Pupil Assessment Program of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction are presented. In 1982, objective-referenced tests in science, mathematics, and geometry were given to a sample of Wisconsin's public school students in grades 4, 8, 11, and 12. Students were also given the Comprehensive Tests…

Six research papers that have been published by the staff of the Center for Statewide Educational Assessment at Educational Testing Service are presented. In "A Selection of Self Concept Measures," Joan Knapp explores questions of defining and measuring self concept. In another paper, she examines some problems of measuring attitudes toward…

For the past six years the National Assessment of Educational Progress has sponsored a national Conference on Large-Scale Assessment, designed to promote and improve communications among educational assessment personnel in State Departments of Education and other agencies. This volume contains most of the papers that were accepted for presentation…

This report of the results of the 1974-75 Florida National Assessment Replication in reading and mathematics at the 9-, 13-, and 17-year-old age levels consists of several major parts: an overview of the assessment design and methodology, comparisons of performance levels for groups of Florida students within each age level, comparisons of…