Reports on diagnostic testing of eighth grade students' performance using two different methods. Concludes that the computer version was significantly more difficult than the other. Suggests that students may perform mathematics differently due to the characteristics of the mediums used. (RT)

Suggests that secondary school students seem to have reasonably good procedural knowledge in areas of mathematics as rational numbers, probability, measurement, and data organization and interpretation. It appears, however, that students are lacking the conceptual knowledge enabling them to successfully do the assessment items on applications,…

Describes the work of the Mathematics Assessment Project to produce a bank of test items for specified syllabi. The bank includes both written items and practical or performance items. (PK)

This study attempted to control differences in achievement when examining omitting tendencies of examinees. Test data of randomly sampled examinees (7 samples of 2,000 examinees each) from one national administration of the ACT Assessment were used. The number of responses omitted per examinee was examined over all examinees and over only those…

The goal of this series of guides is to show Texas educators what components of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) curriculum are eligible for testing on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) and end-of-course tests. This guide contains information for the end-of-course tests administered for the following subjects: Algebra…

The Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), offers the most comprehensive picture available of the education system in the United States. The aim of this study is to show the potential value of a linkage between SASS and data on student academic achievement. To achieve this aim, the…

The DIMTEST statistical procedure was used in a confirmatory manner to explore the dimensionality structures of three kinds of achievement tests: multiple-choice tests, constructed-response tests, and tests combining both formats. The DIMTEST procedure is based on estimating conditional covariances of the responses to the item pairs. The analysis…

Beginning in Spring 1998, Virginia students participated in the Standards of Learning (SOL) assessments designed to test student knowledge of the content and skills specified in the state's standards. This document contains questions that approximately 80,000 students in grade 5 were required to answer as part of the SOL assessments. These…

Score equity assessment was used to evaluate linkings of new SAT® to the current SAT Reasoning Test™. Population invariance across gender groups was studied on the linkage of a new SAT critical reading prototype to a current SAT verbal section, and on the linkage of a new SAT math prototype to a current SAT math section. The results indicated that…

The contributions of open-ended tasks in examining students' mathematical performance were studied with 250 U.S. and 425 Chinese sixth graders. Open-ended tasks allow for analysis of student performance that cannot be assessed solely by percent correct or incorrect, but they pose many problems, such as those of translation. (SLD)

Discusses the use of computer spreadsheets to prepare questions from a problem. Presents three sample problems, templates, and questions. Provides a list of available spreadsheet programs. Lists five references. (YP)

Describes the development and validation of a short form of the My Class Inventory (MCI) assessing classroom psychosocial environment. Reports a case study involving the use of the short form of MCI in attempts to improve a sixth-grade mathematics class. Provides all 25 items of the short version of MCI. (YP)

The impact of overall test length and difficulty on the expert judgments of item performance by the Nedelsky method were studied. Five university-level instructors predicting the performance of minimally competent candidates on a mathematics examination were fairly consistent in their assessments regardless of length or difficulty of the test.…

The average overall Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) score for high school seniors in 1994 remained at 902 of a possible 1600. Math scores showed a one-point gain whereas the average verbal scire fell one point. Despite recent improvements in minority group scores, these dropped or remained stable in 1994. Math and verbal test scores for specific…

Seven articles discuss a theme that was also the subject of a symposium at an Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, reform of school mathematics teaching and curriculum. These articles indicate that educational reform is a complicated endeavor and tension exists between the old and new. (SLD)