An area of current concern is that of the advantages and disadvantages of measuring writing proficiency directly via writing samples, and indirectly via objective tests. Much research has been completed documenting the correlation between direct and indirect measures. However, there had not yet been a systematic and detailed conceptual analysis…

As part of an effort to provide more economical methods for job-skill evaluation in the Army Enlisted Personnel Management System, a study investigated the use of television as a means of presenting test items for a sample of tests from the job field of tank crewman. The television scene provided the job setting for each item and then posed a…

The viewpoint is expressed that adding to test reliability by either selecting a more homogeneous set of items, restricting the range of item difficulty as closely as possible to the most efficient level, or increasing the number of items will not add to test validity and that there is considerable danger that efforts to increase reliability may…

Intended for parents, this guide discusses the effects of standardized tests on children, using test items from recent standardized reading tests which have been administered to children aged 7 to 13 and children's responses to these items. For each item, comments are made about the ambiguity of the item; the various interpretations that can be…

AN INVESTIGATION AND EVALUATION OF TOTAL INFANT AND PRESCHOOL MENTAL TESTING SITUATIONS AND SOME CONCLUSIONS AS TO THE CURRENT NEEDS IN THIS AREA ARE PRESENTED. THESE APPROACHES ARE MADE TO THE PROBLEM. FIRST, THE THEORETICAL THINKING ON THE NATURE OF INTELLIGENCE AND HOW IT DEVELOPS IN CHILDREN IS TRACED. THERE HAS BEEN DISAGREEMENT OVER THE…

SOURCES OF INFORMATION FOR RESPONSES TO MULTIPLE-CHOICE ITEMS ON READING COMPREHENSION TESTS AND THE EFFECTS OF CONTENT WORDS AND FUNCTION WORDS IN SUPPLYING INFORMATION FOR THE CORRECT COMPLETION OF MULTIPLE-CHOICE ITEMS WERE STUDIED IN AN EXPERIMENT AT CAMPBELL COLLEGE. PARAGRAPHS WITH ACCOMPANYING MULTIPLE-CHOICE ITEMS SAMPLED FROM READING…

During the last 10-15 years, there has been a burgeoning interest in ethnicity as a variable in research on objective personality assessment, particularly with respect to black-white differences. Racial differences in responses to items on the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) were investigated to identify nonpathological differences…

Indices of appropriateness of a test for an individual are discussed, and two data sets are evaluated. With the first data set, three indices of test appropriateness are obtained for response patterns on achievement tests from an experimental study of the effects of test anxiety and time pressure with 173 3rd and 4th grade students. Relationships…

The focus of this paper is on improving the measurement of test anxiety. Background information is given about the role of motivation and the importance of testing. The present research is directed at developing a shorter, more reliable and valid measure of test anxiety, thus furthering the predictive, diagnostic, and test program uses of test…

Although this report is several years old, it explores test development in another country, specifically the Netherlands, using American-developed and normed-instruments. The development of vocational maturity tests and the adaptation of Crites' Vocational Developmental Inventory (VDI), Super's Career Development Inventory (CDI) and Westbrook's…

The degree of agreement between the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) and the Personality Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) in assigning sex role categories was investigated by administering both instruments to undergraduate education majors. As a result of scoring, subjects were classified as androgynous, masculine, feminine, or undifferentiated. It was…

The learning module described is for elementary or secondary level teachers who wish to improve their understanding of the meaning of test reliability and validity. The contents of the module are outlined, and activities and resources involved in its use are described. Ordering information on materials is provided, and a critique of the module is…

Summarized are 68 research studies from 1970 to 1975 on the Revised Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA), particularly as it relates to learning disabilities. The reviews have been organized by the following areas (the number of studies in each section and sample study topics are in parentheses): studies comparing the experimental…

Currently available measures of functional literacy for adults are reviewed and evaluated. This report concentrates on tests that are referenced to literary skills important to an adequately functioning adult, such as life skills, coping skills, etc. Because functional literacy has frequently been defined in terms of a grade level equivalent or…

This publication is an outgrowth of the concern expressed by the National Council of Teachers of English regarding the nature, uses, and misuses of standardized tests, specifically the validity of the subject-matter content of standardized English tests and the relation of the overall purposes of a school's total English program to standardized…