This document presents issues that should be considered before student test results are used in evaluations of teacher performance. As the stakes attached to student test results have increased, so has the need for educators to make informed decisions about the types of tests used to generate data for these purposes and the way student test…

This report discusses the most relevant issues concerning student standardised testing in which there are no-stakes for students ("standardised testing") through a literature review and a review of the trends in standardised testing in OECD countries. Unlike standardised tests in which there are high-stakes for students, no-stakes implies that…

Testing is a means of obtaining information about people and their status. Too often tests and testing govern us as educators rather than being governed by us. Reviews the problem and offers some suggestions. (Editor)

Career guidance testing should clarify options for career exploration, claim the authors. They suggest three criteria for tests used in career counseling, note recent applications of the criteria in commercially available tests, and advocate use of the "Counselor's Guide to Vocational Guidance Instruments" by guidance personnel seeking suitable…

Brief guidelines for the selection of norm referenced tests are offered. Four considerations in selecting an appropriate test are: (1) appropriateness of test content; (2) appropriateness of the norm group; (3) test reliability; and (4) ease of administration. (MH)

Guidelines for evaluating criterion-referenced tests and test manuals are proposed and applied to a sample of popular commercially published tests. The well-known Test Standards published by a joint committee of professional societies is helpful, though not completely applicable, and was used together with other sources in the preparation of an…

Reviews literature on the use of content validity to establish the job-relatedness of assessment centers. Attempts to show that content validity requires more than the careful construction of stimulus materials, how these stimulus materials are presented to candidates and how responses to these stimuli are evaluated are also critical…

This speech discusses performance contracting as educational research, notes some evaluation problems, and proposes solutions to these problems. The term performance contracting, according to the report, denotes an administrative rather than an instructional innovation. The author observes that the understanding of instruction and learning derived…

Seven commercially available work evaluation systems are compared using a standardized outline: development, organization, work evaluation process, administration, scoring and norms, observation of clients, reporting utility, training in the system, technical considerations, reviewer's summary and comments, address, cost, and references. There are…

Four commercially available work evaluation systems are compared using a standardized outline: development, organization, work evaluation process, administration, scoring and norms, observation of clients, reporting utility, training in the system, technical considerations, reviewer's summary and comments, address, cost, and references. There are…

Standards for evaluating criterion-referenced tests are presented. Twenty-one standards, grouped in three categories, are discussed. Category one is defined as measurement properties and is comprised of conceptual validity, including description of the domain, test item agreement with objectives, and item representativeness of the objectives; and…

A procedure for in-depth analysis of a limited number of tests being considered for selection by a school, district, project, or state personnel is described. This procedure involves listing the objectives that it would be desirable to measure determining the relative importance of each of these objectives, having "judges" match test items to…

Testing guidelines based on teachers' experience and on a review of literature concerning approaches to the testing of oral second language skills, are presented in this paper. Considerations in developing the test included coordination with the syllabus, choice of format, grading, and administration. Suggestions are offered from the practices of…

This paper describes and evaluates the coverage and content validity of the vocational/career education tests available commercially to high school educators. Tests were analyzed with respect to their collective coverage of the vocational/career education curriculum goals appropriate to grades 11 and 12, and the extent to which each possessed good…

A project was conducted to revise the list of assessment instruments that Pennsylvania Department of Education, Bureau of Adult Basic and Literacy Education (ABLE)-funded agencies are permitted to use to report learner gains. Through a mail survey, the project researched 19 standardized assessment instruments used by agencies for reporting learner…