A discussion of language testing focuses on how proficiency scales are constructed and applied to communicative language assessment in Australian secondary schools. A variety of rating scale types are described and distinguished according to how they are constructed, what they attempt to measure, and what criteria they contain. A more detailed…

Assessment has become the focal point of debates about the purpose, shape, and control of American education. This book presents material that can be used to make assessment a tool for the meaningful reform of school science. Basic guidelines are provided for the various systems of assessment used. The book includes concrete examples of current…

This paper describes the teaching skills workshops at Purdue University (Indiana), which were originally developed in 1980 to train graduate assistants to teach college classes but are now being used by the faculty--instructors through full professors--to improve their teaching. It is noted that the workshops have been successfully modified for…

Information about the functions and achievements of the Des Moines Independent Community School District's Department of Information Management is provided in this evaluation report. The department provides leadership and management services for the district in the areas of strategic planning, program evaluation, testing/assessment, and student…

Recent developments in multi-faceted Rasch measurement (Linacre, 1989) have made possible new kinds of investigations of aspects of performance assessments. Bias analysis, interactions between elements of any facet, can also be analyzed, which permits investigation of the way a particular aspect of the test situation may elicit a consistently…

This paper examines one section of the objective paper of the Hong Kong Examination Authority's (HKEA) Use of English Examination. One of the test types in this section of the examination involves candidates completing a cloze passage based on a text. It is the HKEA's contention that the exercise involves summarizing/paraphrasing skills. The…

This digest discusses the process of referring language minority students to special education, focusing specifically on the problems of overreferral and underreferral. The prereferral process, the assessment and referral process, and the characteristics and behaviors of language minority students in need of special education are described in…

Methods are offered for adapting traditional techniques for teaching more communicative listening and speaking skills in a foreign language. New vocabulary is introduced by using pictures, either prepared or teacher-developed, illustrating the desired lesson. Written statements about the characters, activities, and objects in the pictures are used…

This guide describes practical methods for testing and teaching handicapped children and youth, in either segregated or integrated classrooms, with the focus on developing countries. The first chapter discusses: features of a suitable curriculum; use of a task importance rating scale; and curriculum content, including home environment tasks,…

Three articles about mathematics and science braille are provided for braille transcribers and teachers of the visually handicapped. The first article discusses common problems such as setting braille writers incorrectly, duplicating transcribed materials unnecessarily, and incorrectly transcribing from typescript. The second article provides a…

A history and overview is provided of the Assessment of Language Proficiency of Bilingual Persons (ALPBP) Project. First, the points of origin are summarized and the components of the project are noted. Subsequent sections are devoted to a summary of the activities of each component. The research component concerned basic research related to…

Test scores reflect the unfairness of social and environmental conditions. The remedy is not the elimination of the test or alteration of skills demanded by the school, so that there will be no need for such tests, but the elimination of learning inequalities and social inequalities. (Author)

A study to evaluate seven commonly employed reading comprehension testing techniques in terms of predictive validity, difficulty and discriminability is described. (Author/RM)

Asking students to select materials for tests, prepare them, score them, and analyze them is a valuable learning experience. (RC)

Indicates that black adult and black peer testers elicit significantly more words from black students than do white testers in tests of oral language usage skills. (RB)