This is a book about quality and how to control quality through deliberate actions on the part of the professionals developing and implementing the instances of instruction available at an organization. Quality control theory favors no particular learning philosophy and is only directed towards aspects of how, what, where and when measurements are…

Discusses answer justification, a technique that allows students to convert multiple-choice items perceived to be "tricky" into short-answer essay questions. Convincing justifications earn students credit for missed items. The procedure is reported to be easy to administer and very popular among students. (Author/GEA)

The test-preparation program in this guide covers all forms of test taking to help students deal with real-world problems like test anxiety and insufficient preparation time. The chapters are: (1) "Finding Out about the Tests You Must Take"; (2) "Making a Study Plan"; (3) "Carrying Out Your Study Plan"; (4) "Learning Strategies"; (5) "Coping with…

Nonrestricted-answer, multiple-choice test items are recommended as a way of including more facts and fewer incorrect answers in test items, and they do not cue successful guessing as restricted multiple choice items can. Examination construction, scoring, and reliability are discussed. (MSE)

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…

The authors state that this monograph provides information on how teachers and other school officials may assist students to score better on tests. The emphasis is on the development of test-taking skills, rather than on cognitive development. The contents include: (1) matching objectives, instruction, and testing; (2) assessment and test anxiety;…

In all latent trait models there is an equation which describes the probabilistic outcome of the interaction of a person with a known ability and an item with a known difficulty. This modeled outcome can be compared to the observed outcome, and the residuals can be summed over the items to assess the fit of the person to the model. Various…

This book is designed to help students become better test takers. It is intended for teachers, but would be helpful to parents who think that their children's test scores do not completely represent their knowledge or abilities. Test taking skills are those skills that, when used effectively, contribute to a "test-wise" individual who can use…

In a question and answer format, this guide for parents discusses important issues about standardized reading tests, including the following: (1) scoring systems are obscure; (2) grade level equivalency scores are educationally inaccurate and misleading to child and parent; (3) standardized reading tests are meant to compare groups and not to…

This guide explains the concept of out-of-level testing and suggests a formula for estimating the occurrence of floor effects and ceiling effects, within the context of models for evaluating Elementary Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Title I programs. An analogy explains floor and ceiling effects as if test items are stored in different levels in a…

A closed sequential procedure for estimating true score is proposed for use with answer-until-correct tests. The accuracy of determining true score is the same as in conventional sequential solutions, but the possibility of using an unnecessarily large number of items is eliminated. (Author/CM)