This article describes a study, from a Canadian technical institute's upgrading mathematics course, where students played a role in developing the final closed-book exam that they sat. The study involved a process where students developed practice exams and solutions keys, students sat each other's practice exams, students evaluated classmates'…

Discusses passage content and style, accessibility of the passages, their completeness, the extent to which the items are passage-dependent, and the extent to which additional knowledge is required to answer the questions on reading comprehension tests and exercises. (TO)

Three areas of concern related to test bias and validity should be considered during the revision of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Tests. The first area concerns the sources and consequences of test bias. Five sources of bias have been identified: numerical bias, role bias, status bias, stereotypic bias, and familiarity bias. The…

Finds that the time required to attempt all the test items of each question paper in a four-paper sample was inversely proportional to the percentage of students who attempted all the test items of that paper. Extrapolates results to give guidelines for determining the feasibility of newly-developed exam papers. (WRM)

Reasonable and practical solutions to two major problems confronting the developer of any test of educational achievement (what to measure and how to measure it) are proposed, defended, and defined. (Author/PN)

Criteria are presented for vocational evaluators who use work samples as one means of determining the vocational potential of blind clients. Included are rationale for the use of work samples; specific steps for their administration, scoring, and use of norms; and criteria for modifying present work samples and developing new ones. A literature…

Four conceptually different variables in reading: (1) knowledge gained (new information), (2) amount comprehended (degree of understanding), (3) reading aptitude (differences between individuals), and (4) reading improvement (within individual changes as a result of treatment) are discussed. Existing measures of reading comprehension are evaluated…

Improved communication and cooperation between test publishers and school systems is essential for solving major test problems. Test-curriculum matching, test equating, and inappropriate use of grade equivalent scores are major problem areas. The degree to which a standardized test yields information relevant to what the system is trying to teach…

The history and development of city-wide testing programs in Chicago since 1936 are reviewed and placed in context with the impact on testing of Sputnik and the passage of the National Defense Education Act of 1958. Current testing problems include the time lag between events and curricular changes and new test construction, the time lag between…

Although most instructors are solely responsible for the evaluation and grading of students, they rarely receive formalized training in test construction or other forms of evaluation. Evaluating highly motivated students in very small classes is a rather uncomplicated procedure; however, evaluating large classes in which students have a range of…

Provides a cursory comparison of four popular social studies achievement tests, discusses the relationship between the subject matter and the test, and provides examples of new methods of testing that give the teacher and the class tools for summarizing and interpreting what they are learning as they work together. (Author/IRT)

Analyses of student responses to Introductory Psychology test questions were discussed. The publisher supplied a two thousand item test bank on computer tape. Instructors selected questions for fifteen item tests. The test questions were labeled by the publisher as factual or conceptual. The semester course used a mastery learning format in which…

This report represents the results of an investigation of the appropriateness of criterion-referenced tests (CRTS) for large-scale evaluations. First, the development and validation of CRTS, including the formulation and generation of CRT objectives, items, and score-interpretation schemes and dimensions of item and test quality, were examined to…

The College Board has identified several basic intellectual competencies thought to be essential for effective work in all fields of college study, among them listening and speaking. An issue that arises in connection with these competencies is the availability of suitable measures to assess students' development in these areas. This report…

This article examines 10 critical factors to be considered in selecting a well constructed standardized tests. The 10 factors may serve as model selection criteria for educational practitioners who are responsible for selecting tests for Black students. (Author/DOW)