A multiple choice test focusing on the contributions of Black Americans to the development of the United States is presented with an accompanying bibliography. The test is not intended to be an evaluation device but is more of a stimulator, a diagnostic instrument, a reference tool, an awareness motivator, and an incentive for further…

It is suggested in this column that trends in language testing in the last 15 years have followed trends in modern language teaching. Language testing adopted the tenets of audiolingualism and contrastive analysis, then incorporated test-making procedures of psychometrics, and finally became more eclectic in its approach. (SW)

Indicates females perform better on the two color cards of the "Stroop Color and Word Test" but there were no differences on pure measures of performance between males and females. (RB)

Two cases are cited to suggest that problem-solving has more value for the intellectual development of children when compared to the passive virtue of already knowing the answer. (DW)

The paper offers a brief history of adaptive behavior measurement; the concept of adaptation was first introduced by Herber in 1959. An Adaptive Behavior Scale (ABS) sponsored by the American Association on Mental Deficiency (AAMD) was applied to schools--the Public School Version (PSV)--about 10 years ago, the first of many such measures. To…

The paper presents one strategy for sequencing the task assessment of severely handicapped individuals to facilitate more precise and concise assessment. The proposed sequence includes the following steps: (1) clarifying the purpose for testing, (2) collecting background information to increase the possibility of obtaining more accurate and…

The study examined the effect of test modifications on the performance of 10 handicapped preschoolers on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (Form L-M). Adaptations of both stimulus and response modes were designed and constructed for subtests at the preschool levels on the Stanford-Binet. Attempts were made to maintain the functional…

Confusion, misinterpretations, and conflicting theoretical beliefs seem to be characteristic of language assessment practices. Much of the confusion and misrepresentation are due to the great variety of terms used in the language assessment process and to incomplete definitions of these terms and their operations. In an attempt to clarify the…

In a study to identify brief forms of the Multidimensional Aptitude Battery (MAB), 30 samples of approximately 250 respondents each were drawn from a population of 4,928 adolescents to evaluate by replicated multivariate regression analyses the best combinations of scales for predicting MAB total scores. MAB subscales measuring Comprehension,…

Presents a summary outline of an approach to oral testing used in the past two years with groups of students completing Fernand Marty's "Active French." (Author/PP)

The hypothesis that cloze measures are a function of content achievement among adult learners and, consequently, should be sensitive to instructional treatments was tested in two experimental studies using college juniors and seniors. (Author/BB)

In efforts to clarify ambiguity in the scoring directions for part of the WISC, 100 children were given the test which was scored by two sets of criteria. Four sets of data were analyzed, with significant discrepancies apparent only between Verbal-Performance correlations secured by Wechsler in his standardization of the WISC and those secured in…

Instruments used to measure marital satisfaction over the family life cycle in two previous studies that obtained contradictory results were used on a new sample. The results suggest that the apparent contradictions were a function of measurement differences rather than population differences. (Author)

Concludes that on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children learning of the paired-associates and written speech discriminated between good and poor coders. (RB)