The effectiveness of 19 methods of smoothing was investigated as those methods apply to the equipercentile method of test equating. Seven methods involved smoothing the score distribution before the tests were equated (presmoothing). Seven involved smoothing the resultant points after the equating (postsmoothing). Five methods involved combining…

Equating a new standard test to an old reference test is considered when samples for equating are not randomly selected from the target population of test takers, identifying two problems from equating from biased samples. An empirical example with data from the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery illustrates the approach. (SLD)

In order to meet the needs of all the Armed Services, new forms of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) must periodically be developed, refined, and standardized on an appropriate normative sample. Since one of the uses of the ASVAB is to determine candidate suitability for military service, it is necessary for the…

In the late 1970s, the Department of Defense requested that the reference population for the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) be changed and updated to reflect the current youth population. Analyses of new data collected in 1980 indicated that speeded subtest scores of the new sample were atypically low and that the sample might…

The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), a battery of 10 vocational tests, was administered to a national probability sample of nearly 12,000 young people, 15 to 23 years of age. Score distributions from the study were needed by the Armed Services to set performance levels for accepting and assigning recruits. Three psychometric…