A methodology for evaluating faculty work performance was discussed, using data obtained from a typical liberal arts college faculty. Separate evaluations of teaching effectiveness and of overall contributions to the college for 45 full-time faculty (85% response rate) were collected from administrators, faculty colleagues, students, and from the…

The Standard English Repetition Test (SERT) is an instrument designed to measure the Standard English (SE) performance of young Hawaii Creole English (HCE)-speaking children. HCE is colloquially referred to as "pidgin English." Details of the test's construction are given; test-retest and alternate form reliability and validity studies…

This study was conducted for four reasons: (1) to identify research studies in the area of sex role behavior conducted between l970 and l977 in the fields of psychology, anthropology, sociology, and education; (2) to survey operational definitions of the term "sex role"; (3) to examine the techniques and instruments used to gather sex…

A majority of seventy-three studies dealing with the effect of desegregation on black achievement conclude that desegregation has a beneficial effect on black achievement scores. These findings are in agreement with various national surveys that have found black achievement higher in predominantly white schools. However, a number of desegregation…

This study assessed the construct validity of a cognitive structure interpretation of multidimensional scaling solutions of concept similarity data. Using high school subjects, convergent validity was assessed through correspondence of scaling solutions of three similarity rating tasks; word association, similarity judgment, and semantic…

The authors argue that personnel who select standardized achievement tests have been led to believe that the major achievement test batteries differ very little in terms of the topics they test; but that the content covered by these major tests is different, and that such differences have consequences for instructional content. To test this…

The diagnosis of children as learning disabled (LD) has become an increasingly popular diagnostic rubric, but the operational definition of "learning disabled" remains a vague, ill-defined construct which is based upon diagnosis by exclusion of other obvious causes. Diagnostic test results and cultural and familial information taken from case…

A rationale is presented for the "control items" technique, the technique of using control (nonexperimental) test items to provide a baseline for estimating the effects indicated by scores on the experimental test items. For evaluating the effects of a curriculum, a test can be made of two types of items--ones that test explicit program objectives…

Techniques for assessing test validity and reliability are applied to an analysis of an unpublished test, in order to familiarize test users in local bilingual programs with the technical evidence that should be available for instruments of potential use in placing limited English-speaking students. The instrument studied, the Language Assignment…

Hunt and O'Donnell's Aluminum Paragraph was administered to sixty Canadian college students enrolled in English as a Second Language (ESL) courses. The students were asked to re-write and to improve a paragraph consisting of 32 short, single-clause sentences. The students were identified as low intermediate, high intermediate, and advanced in…

A procedure is described for adding to the usefulness of students' ratings of college instructor effectiveness. This procedure begins with the students responding to a rating scale; in this instance a 25-item, 5-poing scale, but other scales might be used. Then the students are asked to write brief comments on three of those items which they rated…

Instruments to measure decision-making skills of grade 5, 8, and 11 students were developed as a part of Pennsylvania's statewide assessment program. A decision-making model was formulated based upon John Dewey's five major steps of the critical thinking process: (1) identify the problem; (2) establish the facts; (3) formulate the hypothesis; (4)…

Many researchers have questioned the validity of the underlying assumptions, the psychometric properties, and conceptualizations for both the older and new measures that generate two independent scores for masculinity and femininity. The assumptions of bipolarity and unidimensionality and the construct validity of existing masculinity/femininity…

The study examined the process by which diagnostic data on children thought to have learning disabilities (LD) are generated and used. Emphasis was placed on the validity of test instruments in common use in the field. Since part of the practical validity of any instrument used to identify an LD child rests on the validity of the LD construct…

This paper grew out of a presentation made as part of a panel discussion on the Bakke case, and is second in a series of Institute for the Study of Educational Policy documents on important educational issues and problems. Many of the factors that impact test performance or scores are examined. The primary thesis of the paper is that it is…