Independent schools are, for the most part, exempt from mandatory participation in standardized tests designed for state and federal comparisons, nor are they required to take part in comparative international assessments. The anxiety in the broader culture, however, is driving a growing interest among independent school parents (and prospective…

Item bias, when present in a multiple-choice test, can be detected by appropriate analyses of the persons x items scoring matrix. Five related schemes for the statistical analysis of bias were applied to a widely used, primary skills multiple-choice test which was administered in either its English- or Spanish-language version at each of the two…

Single administration (beta-binomial) estimates for the raw agreement index p and the corrected-for-chance kappa index in mastery testing are compared with those based on two test administrations in terms of estimation bias and sampling variability. Bias is about 2.5 percent for p and 10 percent for kappa. (Author/RL)

In this study 6,942 items from two standardized achievement test batteries--the Stanford (Early School Achievement Battery, Achievement Battery, and Test of Academic Skills) and the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills--were analyzed. Focus was on determining: (1) the extent to which these test batteries included general cognitive operations (GCOs)…