To teach the rigorous skills and knowledge students need to succeed in future college-entry courses and workforce training programs, education stakeholders have increasingly called for more rigorous curricula, instruction, and assessments. Identifying the critical attributes of rigor and measuring its appearance in curricular materials is…

An expanded multiple matrix sampling procedure to collect assessment data for health education courses in upper elementary and junior high schools is outlined. This supplement to the Cooperative Health Education Test provides data at the school building and district levels. (JMF)

This overview of variables lists 17 basic educational outcomes, 13 curricular programs, 7 co-curricular programs, 3 aspects of student behavior sampled by the objectives-referenced test items in the Colorado evaluation project. (For related documents, see TM 003 086, 087.) (KM)

This study was designed to assess the conceptual structure of the Task of Public Education Opinionnaire (TPE). Since the development of the instrument, several psychometric techniques have been formulated. Two of those methods, image component and alpha factor analysis, were applied to the items of the TPE after the correlation matrices were…

Argues that even for purposes of applied decision making, reliance upon criterion validity -- the degree to which measures correlate with specific criteria -- or content coverage is not enough, that the meaning of the measure must also be analyzed in order to evaluate responsibly the possible consequences of the proposed use, it is stated.…

The present research was initiated to investigate whether item-sampling as a procedure would yield a more accurate and stable index of student achievement during formative evaluation when compared to indices arrived at by the traditional method of assessing pupil knowledge and understandings within the framework of multiple choice testing for…

Test construction is not the strictly logical process that we might wish it to be. This is particularly true in a large on-going project such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Most of the really deep questions can only be answered by the exercise of well-informed human judgment. Criterion-referenced testing is still a term…

Criterion-referenced testing is defined and some of its background is discussed. A distinction is made between criterion-referenced scores, norm-referenced scores, cut-off scores, criterion scores, criterion variables, and content-standard scores. The relationship between norm-referenced information and criterion-referenced information is…

This manual outlines the rationale for using the Criterion Referenced Test (CRT) approach and suggests specific guidelines for test developers to use in constructing test items. Methods for assessing the adequacy of a CRT are also provided. (Author/RC)

The central assumption in domain-referenced testing (DRT), as presented in this book, is that a domain may be determined which adequately represents a particular universe of knowledge. After a domain has been established, the technological and practical problem of using domain-referenced testing must be solved. This book contains a collection of…

A technology for domain or criterion referenced testing was developed to evaluate the Minnesota Mathematics and Science Teaching Project (MINNEMAST) in grades K-6. The venture was influenced by the low achievement of MINNEMAST students on standardized tests. After instructional objectives were selected and operationally defined, corresponding test…