Diversity has been a focus of higher education policy, law, and scholarship for decades, continually expanding to include not only race, ethnicity and gender, but also socioeconomic status, sexual and political orientation, and more. However, existing collections still tend to focus on a narrow definition of diversity in education, or in relation…

The purpose of this Item Response Theory study was to investigate how the expected reduction in item information, due to the collapsing of response categories in performance assessment data, was affected by varying testing conditions: item difficulty, item discrimination, inter-rater reliability, and direction of collapsing. The investigation used…

The French as a Second Language model tests for advanced levels 7, 8, and 9 were designed to evaluate students' language performance, as outlined in the program of studies for Alberta, Canada, in listening and reading comprehension and oral and written production, communication skills, culture, language and general language knowledge. The tests…

This paper highlights central topics in language testing theory and practice that are relevant to the examination of modern language teaching and learning. Part 1 gives a time-lapse picture of the development of models of language competence in language testing, discusses the distinction between descriptive models and working models, and reviews…

Designed to develop a conceptual perspective, this paper focuses on three tensions: between cognitive and behavioral views of learning and thinking; between factory-model and information-age models of schooling; and between externally-mandated testing and internally-guided assessment. The paper first provides a brief sketch of developments in the…

These two booklets contain a variety of information about the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP), which assessed for the first time in April 1997 all fourth-grade classrooms in the content areas of reading and writing. The first booklet, the Demonstration Booklet, discusses the history and purpose of the assessment; assessment design;…

Temperament refers to basic dimensions of personality that are grounded in biology and explain individual differences in the developmental process rather than universal dynamics. Temperament is currently an active area of research with documented applicability to a variety of developmental and mental health outcomes such as conscience formation,…

This document is a pilot study designed to examine the extent to which currently-used subject-matter standardized tests already test for critical thinking in order to determine if there is a need for the construction of new tests. The study also is intended to be a step toward devising a reliable procedure and scoring key that will enable future…

This manual provides instructors in Peace Corps language training programs with information about two kinds of classroom testing: formative, ongoing testing and summative testing that occurs at the end of an instructional period. The first of the manual's four chapters on the purposes of language testing, discusses language testing within a…

This paper contrasts two traditions, one originally seeking applications for theory, the other looking for solutions to problems in foreign language teaching, and finds both valuable. Five applied linguistics topics--curriculum, discourse analysis, systemic linguistics, testing, and second language acquisition--are briefly discussed within this…

This study focused on the acquisition of the dative verb by Chinese learners of English as a Second Language. The study proposes that the learner acquires basic semantic structure for the double-object dative via the "near universal linking rules that map thematic roles to syntactic positions. On semantic grounds, the learner might then use…

This paper discusses the use of the Internet to enhance test selection, orientation, administration, and scoring. It begins with a review of potential Internet applications in these test areas. Also addressed are difficulties that may be encountered by counselors who use the Internet for testing and issues associated with using the Internet to…

A study was conducted to determine how fitness scores may be affected by varying the method of administration. Five fitness tests were administered to 426 children in grades 1-3. The children were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: traditional instruction, competition, and encouragement. The testing team administered five fitness…

Instructional Design Expert (ID Expert) is a prototype instructional design expert system which supports the instructional design phase of instructional system development. It differs from other instructional design toolkits in that it is built using a knowledge engineering approach, and has been implemented as an expert system. The system…

By being creative in preparing tests and by allowing creativity on the part of students, language teachers can incorporate many of the principles associated with proficiency-oriented instruction into a traditional test format. Such test strategies are based on the following: (1) testing in context is better than testing with a series of unrelated…