This overview of the first year of the La Mancha Project consists of papers on various aspects of the 5-year project to improve the composition instruction in Vermont schools, incorporating workshop and individual student conference techniques, and integrating writing with other academic studies. The papers include discussions of (1) ninth grade…

The inadequacy of the traditional educational program has been clearly shown in the results of Project Talent. To remedy these defects, the Project PLAN Educational system includes six principle components: (1) an extensive informational program describing the opportunities, roles, and activities for which the student might prepare; (2) ability…

Recommendations and criticisms are made which might result in a more reliable assessment of the Puerto Rican child's intelligence as measured by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). Many of these recommendations and criticisms involve typographical and grammatical errors, incorrect language usage, difficulty of item sequence and…

A latent trait model, the Rasch, was fitted to a criterion-referenced test. Approximately 90 percent of the items fit the model. Those items which fit the model were then calibrated. Based on the item calibration, individual ability estimates and the standard errors of those estimates were calculated. Using the ability estimates, it was possible,…

The papers in this volume deal with a range of assessment problems in reading. The first paper, by Karlin, introduces the general problem of using assessment procedures to guide teaching. The next six papers deal with various aspects of this general problem. Otto discusses the distinction between norm-referenced, standardized achievement tests and…

A proposal is described to provide objective test results from the yearly School Certificate/GCE Examinations in Nigeria as computer-generated feedback information to individual schools and the Ministries of Education. Absolute, ipsative, and normative analyses would be presented for syllabus topics within each subject matter, and for each subject…

The development of an objective diagnostic scale to measure atypical behavior is discussed. The Atypical Response Scale (ARS) is a structured projective test consisting of 17 items, each weighted 1, 2, or 3, that were tested for convergence and reliability. ARS may be individually or group administered in 10-15 minutes; hand scoring requires 90…

Two projects that have explored the feasibility of computer-generated verbal score reports for the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills are reported. The first, the Madison Project, designed, produced, and evaluated computer-generated testing reports that were useful to teachers and informative to parents. The reports, which were narrative in format, were…

The construction of an exploratory test dealing with concepts relevant to mathematics was required as part of the New Canadian Study. The test devised for this purpose has three sections dealing with the sorting of objects. In Sort One, 10 lines are sorted into groups of two; in Sort Two, numbers from 1 to 10 are sorted; and, in Sort Three,…

General guidelines for test preparation and use of the language laboratory are developed in this paper. Comparisons between written tests and oral language laboratory tests underscore the importance of clarity in test item preparation. This study examines: (1) test construction, (2) types of questions, (3) test administration, (4) test scoring,…

Intelligence tests should be used to help persons; they should not be used to penalize persons. Furthermore, our focus should be on treatment; it should not be on labeling. IQ testers often stigmatize young children and poor persons (children, adolescents, adults). Large groups of Black Americans, Spanish Americans, and Indian Americans are…

In this publication, designed to serve interested laymen as well as educators, various authors explore the viewpoints of the proponents and the opponents of the National Assessment Program. In their analysis of assessment and its related issues, these authors attempt to provide information that could serve as a basis for an objective consideration…

Presented is a manual for scoring the Bender Gestalt Test and the Human Figure Drawing Test for screening and diagnostic uses with emotionally disturbed, brain damaged, or perceptually handicapped 5- to 11-year-old children. Given are suggestions for administering and scoring the Bender test which examines distortion of shape, rotation,…

The results of the Pennsylvania Educational Quality Assessment program, Phase II, are interpreted. The first section of the manual presents a statement of each of the Ten Goals of Quality Education which served as the basis of the assessment. Also included are the key items on the questionnaires administered to 5th and 11th grade students. The…

The feasibility of using criterion referenced tests (CRTs) in a large-scale evaluation conducted in an effectiveness evaluation context was investigated. The study began by examining the theory that structures the development and validation of CRTs to discover whether, on theoretical grounds alone, CRTs are suitable or not suitable for large-scale…