Methods of helping students reduce test anxiety are discussed, including guided fantasy which leads students to imagine a setting in which they feel competent and relaxed. Catastrophic-anastrophic expectations teach that different expectations create different feelings and make students aware that they are in charge of their own attitudes. Anxiety…

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…

After reviewing the history and evolution of criterion referenced tests and citing the writings of other researchers, the author summarizes the current state of criterion referenced tests. They are used to measure an individual's status with respect to a well-defined behavior domain; the behavior domain can be well-ordered, structured, or…

A study was conducted to see if children in a 6-week Head Start program in Canton, Ohio would make greater cognitive gains in an academically structured curriculum than in a less structured one. With the exception of the educational program, all other aspects of the traditional Head Start program remained the same for all children. Inservice…

Criterion-referenced proficiency examinations have been prepared for entry level occupational therapists and entry level occupational therapy assistants. Item development was based on a task inventory solicited from occupational therapists throughout the country, with six occupational therapists reviewing test development. A small scale pilot test…

The charge of the Commission on Tests was to undertake a thorough and critical review of the College Board's testing functions in American education, to consider possibilities for fundamental changes in the present College Board tests and their use, and to make recommendations to the Board based on its conclusions. After reviewing current…

The problems of standardized tests with regard to Mexican American students, particularly "ethnic validity", are reviewed. Inadequate norm group representation, cultural bias, and language bias are purported by the author to be the most common faults of standardized tests. Suggested is the elimination of standardized testing as a principal means…

This report asserts that the evaluation of young children can be viewed as a classic case of evaluation of the culturally different. Emphasized is the fact that not only are the majority of tests developed with an adult's perspective concerning adequacy of directions, items, and formats, but also the evaluation of the products is carried out…

The evidence used in condemning a test as racially biased is usually a validity coefficient for one racial group that is significantly different from that of another racial group. However, both variables in the calculation of a validity coefficient should be examined to determine where the bias lies. A study was conducted to investigate the…

At the seventh Western Regional Conference on Testing Problems, the following speeches were given: (1) "A Guidance Person's Approach to Testing for the Discovery and Development of Human Talent" by Frances D. McGill; (2) "The Instructional Uses of Measurement in the Discovery and Development of Human Talent" by Roy P. Wahle; (3) "New Frontiers of…

This paper describes the development of a criterion-referenced test. The Prescriptive Mathematics Inventory (PMI) was developed to measure 400 stated behavioral objectives. The test consists of three overlapping levels with the objectives chosen to cover 90 to 95 per cent of the mathematics curriculum nominally taught in grades 4 through 8. Each…

These rating scales are intended for evaluation of student pilot performance. Each student is evaluated individually on the basis of video recordings of the student in flight. Ten point rating lines are used for the ten criterion performance elements of each of three maneuvers, (1) Final Turn to Landing, (2) Lazy Eight, and (3) Vertical S "A".…

Suggests that until some meaning of innate capacity is included, the word intelligence has little precision separate from its use in a social or cultural context. The culture that evolves its definition of intelligence will identify the tasks that fulfill that definition. (Author/AM)

The cloze procedure, an established measure of reading achievement, requires language and reading skills not yet available to elementary school English-second-language pupils who are not literate in their vernacular. A modified cloze procedure, designed to overcome this problem, was found to correlate with traditional vocabulary and reading…

The use of adaptive behavior scales in the assessment of minority children was discussed. Positive and negative characteristics of the scales developed by Mercer and Lambert were identified and discussed. Recommendations included cautions for the use of such scales in the evaluation of culturally different minority children. (Author)