Reviews the process whereby Metropolitan State College (Colorado) developed a series of recommendations concerning the assessment of student learning. Discusses problems encountered and offers a sampling to show the style and detail of the recommendations. (DMM)

This reaction paper stresses the importance of matching the qualitatively different types of educational decisions with appropriate types of tests. Reading instruction is used to illustrate that while standardized tests are helpful for student classification and program accountability, they are hazardous to instructional process decisions which…

Standards-based reform activity dominated K-12 education during the 1990s, reflecting a consensus that improving learning requires state-level curricular standards and examinations. Opponents argue state-imposed standards and tests overly burden districts, degrade teaching and learning, suffer from numerous technical problems, and have failed to…

This report provides teachers, school administrators, students, and the general public with a summarized overview of results from the January 1997 administration of the Social Studies 33 Diploma Examination. The summary is divided into: (1) description of the examination; (2) achievement of standards; (3) provincial averages; (4) multiple-choice…

Major changes underway with regard to educational assessment include an increased role for the federal government; increased emphasis on standards; and increased reliance on performance assessment. These changes are the context for the effort to revise the "Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing." (SLD)

Examines the problems with standardized tests as they apply to language minority students, and offers an alternative assessment process called an authentic assessment. Some classroom uses for authentic assessments are briefly noted. (GR)

Educators in Europe are complaining about mishandled changes in a key English-language test and are demanding that the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which runs the examination, delay plans to introduce its new online format in March 2006 in more than 100 countries. Critics of the planned change in the Test of English as a foreign Language…

Validity is a critically important issue with far-reaching implications for testing. The history of conceptualizations of validity over the past 50 years is reviewed, and 3 important areas of controversy are examined. First, the question of whether the three traditionally recognized types of validity should be integrated as a unitary entity of…

This paper describes three investigations conducted by the University of London School Examinations Department into the possible use of stimulus questions, containing original historical material such as cartoons, maps, photographs and statistics, in the 'O' level history examination. (Author)

The PEDAGE system, at the present time, is a set of programs written in FORTRAN IV language for an IBM 7094 computer. They are in the form of separate main programs with similar data formats, but will be modified in the future to the form of subroutines so that one or more can be called by main programs designed by the individual users. In this…

The efficiency of mastery tests of fixed length which sorts students into two categories is analyzed. For the sort of the students, an index, suggested by Fisher's linear discriminant function for two groups, is provided. (DB)

Discusses the pros and cons of national competency testing. (JMB)

This is an introductory comment by the organizer of the 1986 symposium of the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME). The symposium was organized as a memorial to the late Roger Lennon, former president of NCME and a scholar in the field of educational measurement. (JAZ)

The advantages and disadvantages of four curriculum monitoring systems are presented. (MD)