Intended for administrators and policymakers as well as teachers, this digest explores methods of listening and speaking skills assessment. The digest first provides a rationale for teaching and assessing listening and speaking skills. It then examines definitions of oral communication and listening, noting (1) the trend toward defining oral…

While a broad range of tests is available for second language testing, two of the basic approaches are developmental and non-developmental testing. The former is based on psycholinguistic evidence that language development is systematic, with all learners progressing through the same stages. The latter includes content selected in an ad hoc…

The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of the expectancy-performance relationship for each sex and to determine whether cross-sex comparisons are appropriate. Students' expectancies for academic performance and the relationship of the expectancies to actual grades were examined. Subjects were 331 students (168 women and 163 men)…

In this paper the theory that human thinking proceeds according to the computer model, or symbol manipulation, is reviewed and challenged. The research used as subjects five highly rated tournament chess players who "thought aloud" during a chess game to provide tape recorded protocols of decisions made while playing. These protocols…

The Chancellor of the New York City Board of Education was required to set minimum standards of performance and establish the accountability plan for all schools in the city's decentralized school system. The system includes 32 community school districts. A 29-member commission, which held periodic one-day meetings, developed the standards for the…

The reliability of item bias estimates was studied for four methods: (1) the transformed delta method; (2) Shepard's modified delta method; (3) Rasch's one-parameter residual analysis; and (4) the Mantel-Haenszel procedure. Bias statistics were computed for each sample using all methods. Data were from administration of multiple-choice items from…

The effect of student mobility on achievement on the High School Proficiency Test (HSPT), a state-mandated graduation test in New Jersey, was studied. Students in a small urban district in metropolitan New York City frequently transfer into and out of the district or between schools within the district. The research was conducted in an urban high…

Fifth in a series of studies examining reading discrepancies in Cleveland, Ohio public schools, this report analyzed the spring 1986-1987 reading data so that accurate and usable information and recommendations would be available to decision-makers for related planning, curriculum design, and implementation functions of the district. Students in…

A scoring rubric transition study is described. It was designed to evaluate possible drift in scoring the Maryland Writing Test from year to year (when using a modified holistic scoring method), to evaluate strategies for revising swing rubrics from narrative and explanatory writing while maintaining original scoring standards, and to establish…

This report describes a procedure for developing multimedia instructions that are "optimized" according to certain criteria, and in particular, compares the effect on performance in building from memory using: (1) interactive videodisc-based assembly instructions or (2) passive videotape instructions. It was found that the group…

This guide presents a series of check lists to help teachers and counselors provide nonbiased assessment for referred children, particularly those who are culturally different. The first section deals with evaluating the legitimacy of the referral and considers whether parents have been properly notified. The second section, meeting the child,…

Sixty-three students in three undergraduate college classes were divided into three groups to investigate the effect of two delayed self-reporting techniques on attitudinal data toward a course and instructor. Nonparametric tests and intercorrelations of item treatment means, together with two-way analyses of variance on item clusters, indicated…

If a loss function is available specifying the social cost of an error of measurement in the score on a unidimensional test, an asymptotic method, based on item response theory, is developed for optimal test design for a specified target population of examinees. Since in the real world such loss functions are not available, it is more useful to…

This report on student achievement in Illinois describes and synthesizes the results of six different measures of the achievement of Illinois students. The six tests are: (1) Illinois Inventory of Educational Progress, (2) Decade Study Test, (3) High School and Beyond Test, (4) Scholastic Aptitude Test, (5) American College Test, and (6) National…

The central purpose of the present study was to evaluate several statistical techniques (analysis of variance (ANOVA) on raw gains, standardized ANOVA, standard analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), and z-score ANOVA) under various quasi-experimental conditions (three levels of reliability, three levels of sample size, three levels of gain, and the…