Security procedures for the New Jersey High School Proficiency Test (HSPT) are discussed and evaluated. All New Jersey high school students are required to pass the HSPT, which was administered for the first time in 1984. Generally, security plans are designed to limit access to test questions prior to test administration and to prevent…

Focusing on the problems of assessing the speaking skills of secondary school students, this paper provides one example of how those problems were addressed in the Massachusetts speaking assessment. The paper identifies four requirements for measures of speaking skills: (1) feasibility, (2) reliability, (3) validity, and (4) freedom from bias. The…

In response to the need to develop reliable methods of evaluating Texas students' achievement of essential competencies, this study was designed to develop multiple-choice test items in food and nutrition in all comprehensive homemaking education courses, the semester course in food and nutrition, and all occupational methods of teaching food and…

The Regents Competency Program has two basic purposes: (1) to assure the early identification of students who need help in developing reading, writing, and mathematics skills and (2) to assure that students have acquired adequate competency in these skills before receiving a high school diploma. The New York State Preliminary Competency Test in…

A project provided teachers and other school personnel with a set of practical instruments for assessing students' generalizable mathematics skills in the secondary vocational training programs in Illinois. The major accomplishments of the project were advisory committee identification and selection; population and sample identification and…

A study examined the skill areas and skills that were generalizable within and across the secondary vocational training programs in the 32 area vocational centers in Illinois. During the project, researchers worked to develop, validate, and determine the reliability of a generalizable skills instrument and to identify which mathematics,…

The North Carolina Test of Algebra II was developed for use as an achievement test following the completion of the Algebra II course of study. Its design serves two purposes: (1) a normative measure of student achievement; and (2) an objective-based measurement of curriculum coverage. The test's curricular validity, content validity, instructional…

A study examined the construct validity of six vocational achievement tests used in the Ohio Vocational Achievement Testing Program. (Subject areas covered in the tests were agricultural mechanics, carpentry, diesel mechanics, distributive education for food services personnel, fabric services, and home economics/food service.) In order to…

The 1977 edition of the Florida Functional Literacy Test is a 117-item multiple-choice measure of 13 mathematics and 11 communication skills required for minimal acceptable performance for students to graduate from state high schools. A student must pass at least half of the skills in mathematics and communications and get 70 percent of the items…

The topic of high-stakes testing (HST) is important because HST has direct and indirect effects on career-technical education (CTE) programs and timely because HST increasingly enters public discussion and has produced a large body of research and practice that generalizes to CTE. A review of HST has identified two persisting dilemmas: policy and…

This report summarizes findings from a study of the psychometric properties of the resilience and youth development module, a key component of the Healthy Kids Survey. The study aims to improve resilience assessment and research so that educators can shape the school environment to promote academic resilience. The Healthy Kids Survey (HKS) is a…

A formative evaluation of a pilot review and appeal process for the Maryland Writing Test (MWT) is described. The MWT is a large-scale direct assessment of writing. A three-year pilot phase was to culminate in the implementation of an operational procedure for the review and appeal of scores impacting a pass/fail decision for examinees. The MWT…

Since 1906, hundreds of thousands of Alberta, Canada secondary school students have taken some form of provincially set and scored examinations. The grade levels of students required to write such examinations have changed several times, and tests have involved formats which included various combinations of essay, short answer, matching, and…

The Alabama High School Graduation Examination (AHSGE) was given to eleventh graders for the first time in October 1983. In April, 1983, an instructional validity survey was conducted concurrently with the piloting of the AHSGE to determine if seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth grade students were being taught the skills tested on the AHSGE.…

A project was conducted to develop vocational education tests for use in Georgia secondary schools, specifically for welding, machine shop, and sheet metal courses. The project team developed an outline of an assessment model that included the following components: (1) select a program for use in developing test items; (2) verify duties, tasks,…