As part of its school improvement effort, AEL, a regional education laboratory, developed the Continuous School Improvement Questionnaire (AEL CSIQ). Staff from the AEL Quest schools program drafted a 65-item questionnaire to help measure and assess the efforts of the project team in their work with the 18 schools in the Quest network. These items…

This study examined the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) through the use of testlet methods to model its inherent, locally dependent structure. Precision, measured by reliability, and fairness, measured by the comparability of performance across all identified subgroups of examinees, were the focus of the study. The polytomous item response theory…

This study aimed at finding criteria like within-method stability rates or between-method agreement rates that could help to choose a powerful and low-cost differential item function (DIF) detection method. The study tried to verify the within-method stability of item response theory (IRT) based over non-IRT-based procedures in two different…

To investigate whether the structured and applied nature of a service learning method results in changes in knowledge, skills, and attitudes regarding working with underserved populations, the Service Learning Instrument-Health Professional (SLI-HP) was designed. This instrument measures both student experiences and changes in attitudes, skills,…

Judgmental standard setting methods, such as the Angoff method (W. Angoff, 1971), use item performance estimates as the basis for determining the minimum passing score (MPS). Therefore the accuracy of these item performance estimates is crucial to the validity of the resulting MPS. Recent researchers (L. Shepard, 1994; J. Impara, 1997) have called…

The standards outlined in this book have been developed to provide criteria for the evaluation of tests, testing practices, and the effects of test use. The "Standards" provides a frame of reference to ensure that relevant issues are addressed. The first part of the book, "Test Construction, Evaluation, and Documentation,"…

Teachers must evaluate, judge, and award grades but all too often they evaluate students merely to submit that time-honored course grade. The use of measurement instruments, their reliability and validity, and the role of instructional objectives are presented in the light of their use in educational evaluation. (DS)

Repeated ratings of therapeutic facilitativeness in each recorded session revealed (a) that while high and low-facilitative therapists generally tended to function at high and low levels, respectively, both groups were variable in their functioning across sessions and particularly within sessions with their patients; and (b) that therapeutic…

The authors of this article contend that the Guinan and Foulds study was inadequately designed and executed, and the results indicate little of the "usefulness" of the test, much less illuminate the important hypothesis central to the investigation. Specific suggestions for further research in marathon group evaluation are made. (Author)

Discusses the assessment scheme used in evaluating student projects in the Scottish Certificate of Sixth Year Studies. Included are the results from two tests of the assessment reliablilty and a description of teachers' views on the acceptability of assessment techniques. (CC)

Institutionalizing the evaluation function within educational institutions serves both accountability and decisionmaking. One of the greatest problems is the reliability of evaluation in formation. Provides guidelines for avoiding credibility gaps that derive from the characteristics of personnel and from the nature of the organizational…

Purpose of the study was to determine if primary school children, when exposed to verbal and pictorial descriptions of potentially reinforcing stimuli, could accurately differentiate between the reinforcement potency of these stimuli. (Authors)

Various reasons are given for the unrealiability of class rank as an indicator of academic success; author is head of a small private college-preparatory school. (SP)

Describes past attempts and alternate procedures for maintaining standard client consistency in simulated experience. Discusses research implications of methodology as well as school use in counselor selection. (CJ)