Far-reaching technological changes are shaping our society and the ways in which we work. A key 21st -century skill for taking advantage of those changes may be computational thinking (CT). CT aims at enabling humans to carry out more effective problem solving by utilizing concepts of computing and computer technology. For a successful integration…

The vast majority of second language teachers feels confident about their instructional performance and does not usually have much difficulty with their teaching thanks to their professional training and accumulated classroom experience. Nonetheless, many second language teachers may not have received sufficient training in test development to…

This study reports the preliminary results from a field test of the College-readiness Performance Assessment System (C-PAS), a large-scale, 6th-12th grade criterion-referenced assessment system that utilizes classroom-embedded performance tasks to measure student progress toward the development of key cognitive skills associated with success in…

The effect of perceptual speed on performance and paper-and-pencil measures of spatial ability is examined. Perceptual speed is defined as speed in comparing figures or symbols, scanning to find figures or symbols, or carrying out other very simple tasks involving visual perception. It was hypothesized that perceptual speed would have more…

An approach to studying children's strategies in social interactions and in material tasks has been developed for use with children 3 through 6 years of age. The Children's Strategies Assessment System (CSAS) provides both a time and an event sample of behaviors and records children's strategies under each of five constructs: involvement,…

Four essential dimensions of a performance test are detailed: directness of test method, type of criterion, standardization of conditions, and objectivity of scoring. For simplicity these factors are described as if each were dichotomous, when in actuality each is a continuum; a test method may be more or less direct, conditions more or less…

For instructional materials to be certified as "effective," students must meet instructional objectives operationalized by criterion tests. By implication, evaluators must agree when criteria are or are not met. Fourteen instructors evaluated 10 posterior bridges. Interjudge agreements for total bridges and individual attributes were low, as they…

A theory is discussed in which observed performance ratings are derived from the distance between a rater reference point and subject performance point located on a postulated equal-interval scale and a postulated s-shaped rater characteristic curve, operationalized as the normal ogive. Least-squares estimates of rater (nR=47, 31, and 29) and…

Describes the development of a staff evaluation method for a West African diesel power plant extension, focusing on project constraints, individual job performance, maintenance staff group performance, unscheduled emergency exercises, unplanned shutdowns and other critical incidents, and observation of staff behavior during shifts. Outlines staff…

A study tested the validity and reliability of a structured interpersonal communication encounter method of assessing interpersonal communication proficiency. Subjects, 13 graduate students in Communicative Disorders, were assessed 2 times within 3 weeks by interacting with 2 different test initiators. Two tests of validity and two tests of…

Social facilitation as a self-presentational display, and social performance impairment attributable to perceived public failure, are examined in a study of context effects in verbal learning. Female undergraduates (N=72) served as subjects with one male who served as an "audience." Performance data indicate that, consistent with the present…

Fair, valid, and reliable measurement of dependent variables is a concern in personnel evaluation studies. Performance tests, that is, job or work sample tests, situational tests, and job learning or trainability tests, are being used with increasing frequency as measurement techniques capable of meeting these needs. The three categories of…

Discussed is testing in the field of career education for the handicapped, with emphasis on four major topics: applied performance testing, criterion validity studies, product vs. process measurement, and criterion vs. norm-referenced measurement. The author reviews some political considerations relevant to this area of testing. (IM)

To determine the influence of successful or unsuccessful competitive outcomes and small or large margins of victory/defeat on performance, pairs of female undergraduate students "competed" against each other in a dart tossing contest. False feedback about the outcomes and margin of victory/defeat led subjects to believe they were winning every…

This study examines the Wheatley Cube as a measure of spatial/visualization ability. The Wheatley Cube is a computer managed task which requires the subject to visualize a three-dimensional workspace and to find an invisible dot located within this space. Thirty-three undergraduate students were administered four tests of spatial/imaginal ability…