A comprehensive student basic skills assessment program was developed at St. Louis Community College (SLCC) at Florissant Valley to appraise student readiness to take courses, gather information for counseling and advising, diagnose student problems, and evaluate program efficiency and effectiveness. The steps taken in developing the program were:…

Educational item banking presents observers with a considerable paradox. The development of test items from scratch is viewed as wasteful, a luxury in times of declining resources. On the other hand, item banking has failed to become a mature technology despite large amounts of money and the efforts of talented professionals. The question of which…

Suggest that the test performance of disadvantaged children can be influenced by the affective tome of the test administration as determined by the wording and content of the test instructions. (Author/AM)

This digest lists guides to non-commercial tests and compilations of such tests to help identify potentially useful non-commercial tests and assessment instruments to measure special characteristics of students. Reliability and validity information is frequently available. The guides reviewed include: (1) "Measures for Psychological…

Upon learning that a form of the Sequential Tests of Educational Progress was incorrectly distributed to an unidentified number of high school students along with an answer sheet pregridded with an alternate test form, the Austin Independent School District performed the following research analyses: (1) scored the tests using the key for each…

Arguing that most standardized tests are biased against minorities, especially black Americans, several alternatives and guidelines are suggested to alter the present unfair administration, interpretation, and testing process. (EH)

Presents evidence from a study of examination answer changes by students and from supporting literature to discredit the idea that first impression answers on objective tests are dependable enough that subsequent changes more often result in lower scores than in higher scores. (JT)

This article discusses criterion-referenced tests as learning guides, and outlines conditions necessary for the effective use of these tests. (Text is in German.) (Author/AM)

This continuing ERIC/CAPS series, entitled Searchlight Plus, consists of two components: first, an in-depth review of cited materials, including prime issues and trends, and implications for helping professionals; and, second, citations from an ERIC computer search on the topic. Series topics are selected in response to user requests. Presented in…

Because motivational factors and test wiseness can contaminate testing used for needs assessments or evaluation purposes, techniques for increasing student and teacher motivation are discussed. Guidelines concerning guessing are also presented. While guessing is encouraged on program evaluation or screening tests, it is not advocated for…

A QUESTIONNAIRE WAS USED FOR OBTAINING A RATING OF JUNIOR-TEACHERS FROM THEIR PUPILS IN A GRADE SCHOOL WHERE THE CHILDREN WERE OF LATIN-AMERICAN DESCENT AND FROM A LOW SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS. THE QUESTIONNAIRE THAT HAD BEEN USED BEFORE WITH MIDDLE-CLASS CHILDREN IN TWO OTHER SCHOOLS CONSISTED OF 40 QUESTIONS REQUIRING "YES" OR…

This paper presents the purpose, format, topics of seminar sessions, and participant recommendations of a conference on educational testing processes and their relation to blacks. The conference was held to familiarize participants with research data demonstrating the fallacies and inconsistencies inherent in the testing process as it relates to…

This bibliography is divided into four main sections. The first section cites bibliographies dealing with language testing, while the second and third sections deal with books and articles in the same area. A fourth section lists test distributors' catalogues. Entries include publications from many countries. Most entries have been published since…

The Prescriptive Mathematics Inventory (PMI)-Level B and a Pupil identification Form (PID) were administered to 22,055 sixth graders in Texas. Results from the PMI are reported in terms of the percentage of students marking the correct response for each of 209 objectives. Panels of mathematics teachers and of mathematics experts rated 40 of these…