Most problems with tests have to do with their use, misuse, or lack of use. Test scores can be of value to teachers who know how and how not to use them. The purpose of this booklet is to provide a brief overview of standardized testing and to explain some of the commonly used terminology. Topics discussed include: teacher-made and standardized…

This document contains abstracts of papers from a workshop resulting from events stemming from the Office of Education report, A Look at Women in Education: Issues and Answers for HEW. This report charged that a particular career interest inventory was sex-biased, but no operational definition of sex bias was given, the issues involved were not…

Three basic concerns in measurement were selected, and their importance for the classroom teacher were illustrated. These were test validity, reliability, and problems in measuring achievement gains. Test validity was dependent upon content, type and quality of the questions, adequacy with which the test sampled reading skills, and the care with…

Prior use of the equipercentile method of test equating was based on a graphic procedure which is tedious, subject to smoothing errors, and non-analytical. Recognition of the equipercentile method as a curve-fitting procedure for two cumulative percentage distributions leads to a proposed analytical solution to the problem through use of linear…

This study examined the relationship between initial and final consonants on two equivalent forms of the Wepman Auditory Discrimination Test (WADT). Subjects were 128 first grade, English-speaking, Negro, disadvantaged children. The two WADT forms each contained 40 different word-pairs. Thirteen word-pairs differed in initial consonant (IPT); 13…

Thirty-five disadvantaged Negro 4-year-olds were observed by one or the other of two white male child psychiatrists during a 30-minute play session. After the session, the observer dictated a descriptive summary of the session. He filled out a rating scale on aspects of the child's behavior, including speech and play behavior, nature of social…

Four conceptually different variables in reading: (1) knowledge gained (new information), (2) amount comprehended (degree of understanding), (3) reading aptitude (differences between individuals), and (4) reading improvement (within individual changes as a result of treatment) are discussed. Existing measures of reading comprehension are evaluated…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) was created in 1969, and its goals were twofold: to make available the first comprehensive data on the educational attainments of young Americans in 10 learning areas and to measure any growth or decline that takes place in the educational attainments of young Americans. In 7 of the 10…

These guidelines deal specifically with the context in which the measurement of interests occurs and the interpretive materials which are made available to test users. They are classified and discussed in three categories: guidelines intended to inform the test user of possible factors influencing a sex-biased response on interest inventories;…

This report contains an interpretive analysis of individual test items used in the 1973 Wisconsin State Mathematics Assessment at grades 3 and 7. The sampling procedures, organization, interpretation of data, limitations, and useful definitions of the test, and test results are discussed. The analysis includes an evaluation of each test item and…

The reading assessment undertaken by the Department of Public Instruction in May 1973 was a pilot study. As such its primary purpose was to provide information for future assessment instruments, administration procedures, sampling procedures, and data analysis alternatives. Thus, this document contains a critical examination of the pilot…

The testing manual for middle and secondary schools of the School City of Gary is provided. The manual is divided into five parts: (1) rationale of the citywide testing program--selection and classification decisions, evaluation of treatments and verification of hypotheses, selection of tests, and general testing principles; (2) preparation for…

This study tests the appropriateness of Torrance's assumptions of trait independence and the combinability of measures (Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking) with respect to the scoring of the tests for a younger population and estimates the homogeneity of the scores. The sample consisted of 128 elementary school children. Results indicate that…

Four confusing issues that have delayed progress toward an awareness that testing is not a source of unfairness for minority students are discussed: (1) the assumptions underlying most of our psychometric manipulations are often not acknowledged or understood; (2) the extent of the objectivity of psychometrics is frequently exaggerated; (3) the…

This manual describes the construction, administration and interpretation of the Course Evaluation Schedule, designed to assess students' perception of instruction. The inventory is divided into four parts; the first, designed to elicit information about the instructional modes used, is not included in the ratings. The remaining three parts…