To help Education Consolidation and Improvement Act Chapter 1 personnel work more effectively with test publishers, a survey was conducted of selected publishers of norm-referenced tests commonly used by Chapter 1 Local Educational Agencies (LEAs). The test publishers included: (1) CTB/McGraw-Hill; (2) The Psychological Corporation; (3) the…

Commercially available tests and measurement instruments for use with English-speaking subjects are described and reviewed. Only tests that are new, have been revised since last reviewed in the Mental Measurements Yearbook series, or are considered established and highly used are included. The contents are as follows: (1) a bibliography of…

Current information about tests and testing procedures is provided for school district staff, particularly in districts without specially trained testing directors. Practical information is given about selecting and administering tests and about reporting results effectively. This guide opens with a discussion of the basic principles of testing.…

Issues associated with the lack of statistical skills among educational and psychological researchers are discussed. Issues are associated with accreditation standards, faculty positions for psychometric specialists, measurement curricula, and licensing organizations. The Test User Qualification Working Group has produced a model test user…

This paper aims to help service providers more accurately identify specific areas of need and effective accommodations for postsecondary students with learning disabilities, through interpretation of previously prepared diagnostic reports combined with informal interview and assessment techniques. The paper discusses the factors to consider in…

The Ohio Vocational Achievement Tests are specially designed instruments for use by teachers, supervisors, and administrators to evaluate and diagnose vocational achievement for improving instruction in secondary vocational programs at the 11th and 12th grade levels. This guide explains the Ohio Vocational Achievement Tests and how they are used.…

The American Nurses' Association certification provides professional recognition beyond licensure to nurses who pass an examination. To determine the passing score as it would be set by a representative peer group, a survey was mailed to a random sample of 200 recently certified nurses. Three questions were asked: (1) what percentage of examinees…

The purposes of this study were to compare student, school, and group average distributions of two standardized tests, the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) and Stanford 7 Plus Achievement Test, and examine the American College Testing Programs college entrance examinations (Grades 11-12). In addition to the student-school norm comparisons, ratios…

Concern about the possible bias of using only verbal assessments for the identification of intellectually gifted students led to an examination of the effect of incorporating nonverbal assessments of intelligence into the identification process. Two nonverbal instruments (Progressive Matrices and Test of Nonverbal Intelligence) were used in…

Although item bias statistics are widely recommended for use in test development and test analysis work, problems arise in their interpretation. The purpose of the present research was to evaluate the validity of logistic test models and computer simulation methods for providing a frame of reference for item bias statistic interpretations.…

During the past two decades, there have been several highly visible developments in education, including behavioral objectives, criterion-referenced test interpretations, the mastery model in instruction, performance-based instructional programs, competency testing, and accountability. This paper is an attempt to weave these various developments…

The School Subjects Attitude Scales is an instrument for measuring students' attitudes toward school subjects for grades 5-12. Twenty-four bipolar word pairs are used with evaluation, usefulness, and difficulty scales. The word pairs were selected on the basis of discussions and analysis of trial forms. Results can be used in program evaluation…

The Portland (Oregon) Public Schools Research and Evaluation Department is investigating the use of evaluative data in instructional planning and decision making in schools. The three-year research effort involves training and technical support in effective evaluation use. The first year of the evaluation use research focused on collecting and…

The use of item banks and item response theory has resulted in new ways to misinterpret and misuse tests through customized, yet standardized, achievement test batteries. The new test batteries create the possibility of serious misunderstandings based on the idea that any subset of items from the pool with a proper range of difficulties will…

In spring 1986, the Community College of Philadelphia (CCP) participated in a study conducted by the Center for the Study of Community Colleges to test students' knowledge of the liberal arts. The General Academic Assessment (GAA), a 94-item test of student knowledge in the humanities, social sciences, mathematics, and English usage, was…