Mediation analysis plays an important role in understanding causal processes in social and behavioral sciences. While path analysis with composite scores was criticized to yield biased parameter estimates when variables contain measurement errors, recent literature has pointed out that the population values of parameters of latent-variable models…

The OECD and its U.S. administrator, McGraw-Hill Education CTB, have recently concluded the first cycle of the OECD-Test for Schools in the U.S. This test is being marketed to local schools and is designed to compare 15-year-olds from individual participating schools against peers nationally and internationally using the OECD's PISA test as its…

A three-dimensional (3-D) test, comparable to twenty-five items from the Boehm Test of Basic Concepts, constructed to determine whether 3-D stimuli would facilitate responses when compared to two dimensional (2-D) stimuli, revealed no significant effects for the version of the test (2-D or 3-D) or the order of administration. (MB)

Research relating to the factor structure of the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) and the Clinical Analysis Questionnaire is reviewed. Different opinions about the factors measured by the 16PF are discussed. Focusing on the second-order factor level could eliminate problems with the instruments' reliability. (SLD)

This study reports the preliminary results of a research project that focuses on the development of an abbreviated measure of computer anxiety, the Computer Anxiety Scale (CAS)-Short Form (SF), designed for use with upper elementary and secondary school students. The subjects involved in the study included 1075 students in grades 4 through 12,…

Investigated the extent to which the Personality Attributes Questionnaire and the Bem Sex Role Inventory assigned the same individuals to identical sex-role categories. Less than 55 percent of the subjects were assigned to identical categories. Suggests care must be taken when comparing results of studies that employ different instruments. (Author)

The psychometric properties of objective tests administered in two testing conditions were compared, using an experimental take-home testing condition and a traditional in-class testing condition. Subjects were 290 college students in a basic educational psychology course who took a test developed and tested the previous semester. Two equivalent…

Scores on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) Verbal, Performance, and Full Scales were compared for 26 adolescents with educable mental handicaps. The WAIS-R, while strongly correlated with the WISC-R, provided higher scores on all three scales. Several WISC-R…

The extent to which national performance on an achievement test battery changed over a 4-year period was studied, and the comparative performance of students in school districts taking the test series for the first time was compared with that of students in districts that had used the battery at least once in one or more grades. The seventh…

Locally developed occupational tests were administered to 16- and 17-year-olds in a government-sponsored vocational education program in the United Kingdom over a six-month period in 1984. Job skills were tested in two occupational areas: use of a micrometer and invoice completion. Some performance tests were designed by researchers and some by…

Detailed evidence is presented about the extent of generalization from high-stakes tests to other tests and about the instructional effects of high-stakes testing. Data are from grade 3 of a large, high-poverty urban district with large numbers of Black and Hispanic American students. The district's results in 1990 for two tests, designated Test B…

The scores of handicapped students taking tests such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) or the Graduate Record Examinations are flagged so that admissions officers will be aware that they were achieved under special circumstances. A series of studies was initiated to determine whether special administrations of such tests are comparable to…

The field testing process for the collection of data on the norms, reliability, and concurrent validity of the Career Decision-Making System (CDM) is described. The CDM is a comprehensive career planning instrument that surveys interests, values, abilities, and training plans and relates them to career information in client-oriented interpretive…

Concern was expressed for the possible effects of testing Elementary Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Title I students with norm-referenced tests that may be so difficult that many students will have scores in the chance range. The likelihood of such students obtaining equal scaled scores if they were tested with easier out-of-level tests was…

To assess the impact of various rating scale formats in rating student teachers, a Likert-type scale (Highly agree/slightly agree/neither/slightly disagree/highly disagree) was derived from the graphic scale currently used by the cooperating teachers and university supervisors. They rated the music student teachers on an eight-point scale from…