The Virginia Community College System established an ad hoc committee to review its testing program. Each member college was polled as to the areas of skills, potential, or aptitude it desired measured in each of seven curricula areas. The detailed responses of each college are included in the report. The committee established the following…

The objectives of this project were to test (1) a structured language-oriented curriculum, used for an academic year in Hawaiian Head Start classes, and (2) a parent education program. Teachers in eight experimental classes used semistructured language-strengthening activities along with structured lessons and were guided by supervisors. Eight…

A general working model of cognitive development assumes that there are sets of orthogonal cognitive abilities, which remain fairly stable after age 7. This paper examines the long term predictive and diagnostic value of assessing specific cognitive abilities among preschool children. This model by empirical studies was defendable on the grounds…

The effects of test-item selection on total test reliability and validity were investigated. It was posited that in a reading comprehension test, the knowledge displayed by the examinees is of interest only as it is a valid measure of how much a student learned from reading or comprehending a stimulus paragraph. Selection of items solely on the…

The purpose of this study was to determine the validity of the American College Test (ACT) in predicting academic achievement of students from an area which is culturally, economically, and educationally depressed. The population, chosen from 6 community colleges serving the Appalachian region of Kentucky, consisted of 1,127 full time (12 or more…

The California Education Information System (CEIS) consists of two subsystems of computer programs designed to process business and pupil data for local school districts. Creating and maintaining records concerning the students in the schools, the pupil subsystem provides for a central repository of school district identification information and a…

Reading test results and their interpretation are stressed because of their importance in student achievement. The Nelson-Denny Reading Test used at Harcum Junior College is a useful measuring instrument for predicting academic achievement, screening students, and diagnosing reading and learning problems. General hints for interpretation of the…

Arthur R. Jensen's article presented no new data: it only reorganized a biased sample of already existent data. Nevertheless, it has been taken by opponents of school integration as definitive scientific evidence of the innate inequality of black and white students. Jensen and Van Den Haag advocate additional studies on individual learning ability…

This paper is concerned with the accusations made by such groups as the Association of Black Psychologists in their call for a moratorium on testing, that standardized tests are biased. A biased test measures one trait in one group of people but a different trait in a second group. Evidence about the amount of bias in tests is thin. Bias must be…

Tests of reading comprehension presently used do not provide one important item of technical data: the extent to which questions used in the test could be answered without reading the paragraphs upon which those questions are based (paragraph dependency). This leaves the test user guessing as to whether the students taking the test and performing…

Seniors in Broward County (Florida) public and private high schools were compared on the basis of 1970-1971 statewide test results, with comparisons made of how well students were achieving in terms of their capabilities as measured by the verbal and quantitative aptitude sections of the statewide battery. Some of the findings were that: 1)…

This paper focuses on three topics. The first introduces the original Anchor Test Study conducted and reported by Educational Testing Service (ETS) from 1971 to 1974. This study, involving the testing of more than 300,000 children, produced raw score equivalency tables for eight commonly used reading tests and new individual and school-mean norms…

Reviewing psychometric and statistical developments in criterion- referenced testing, this paper presents six sections: uses of criterion- referenced test scores, reliability of criterion-referenced test scores, determination of test length, determination of cut-off scores, test development and validation, and summary and suggestions for further…

Possible misinterpretation of grade equivalents to measure the growth and the placing students is the subject of this research. The findings suggest the use of standard scores as the most appropriate method to measure change. (MFD)

Examines some of the problems in interpreting data from attitude measures when the dimensionality of the instrument and sources of heterogeneity in the population are ignored. Illustrates this point by describing the development of an instrument designed to measure children's attitude toward science-related activities. (TW)