Three kinds of instructionally sensitive achievement tests are described which provide useful information on formal schooling proficiencies: placement, progress, and attainment tests. Procedures to design, develop, and empirically verify attainment and placement tests are presented. The methodology is designed to ensure that the test instruments…

Where human beings are concerned and complex behavior is involved, prediction of future performance is no simple matter. Scientifically developed, systematically standardized and carefully validated tests have emerged as the most reliable tools in predictive efficacy. If opponents of standardized testing win, society will lose. (Author/CM)

This ERIC Digest discusses implications derived from the final report of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, "A Nation at Risk." The first implication is a motivational one for measurement specialists: it is an ego-booster. The report is replete with results yielded from various testing programs, the fruit of the…

The steady growth of state testing programs and its implications for the measurement community are discussed in terms of testing purposes (monitoring, accountability, and curriculum advancement) and test development, administration, and reporting. It is important that the measurement community address crucial issues to maintain its substantial…

Continuing attention to test theory, test development, test interpretation and use, test monitoring and control, test consumer education, and the social and political consequences of testing is suggested as the primary concern of the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME). (CM)

Several issues facing the measurement community were brought on by the recent emphasis on stricter educational accountability measures. These testing issues include the limits of test scores, effects of testing on instruction, proper test use, importance of the test content, and defining the basics in education. (EGS)

The materials presented were developed for use in a series of conferences on testing and instruction sponsored by the National Institute of Education, with the United States Office of Education, the UCLA Center for the Study of Evaluation, and a network of research and development agencies. They are intended for use by school practitioners and…

It has been recommended that the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) specify comprehensive exercise domains to measure academic achievement, and provide a national item pool to measure the objectives in these domains. These domain specifications and item pools would serve to satisfy the increasing demand for valid, accurate, and…