Work on the development of a phonics test that will be incorporated into a total word identification test battery has continued for several years. A prototype of the test was developed in winter 1977, and a revised version was administered in spring 1978. Analysis of this test data revealed several problems, and new criteria for the test were…

Many combinations of a method and an approach for estimating the operating characteristics of the graded item responses, without assuming any mathematical forms, have been produced. In these methods, a set of items whose characteristics are known, or Old Test, is used, which has a large, constant amount of test information throughout the interval…

Research related to the multiple choice test item is reported, as it is conducted by educational technologists in Japan. Sato's number of hypothetical equivalent alternatives is introduced. The based idea behind this index is that the expected uncertainty of the m events, or alternatives, be large and the number of hypothetical, equivalent…

The traditional vehicle for collection of information from parents about a school's goals is a questionnaire that provides alternative goal statements. Two problems are frequently associated with such questionnaires: the goal lists suggest that a school can achieve all desired goals simultaneously; and many surveys use stimulus questions that are…

A writing competency exam has been developed at a Vermont state college as a uniform method of judging attainment of a specified minimum standard for writing. The test was designed to meet four primary criteria: to judge student ability to create discourse, to yield specific evaluative information, to involve all academic divisions in test design…

MeasureMetric is a school television/film series for fifth and sixth grade students which presents measurement and the metric system. The main goal of this test development effort was to produce a valid and reliable test usable by classroom teachers for measuring children's achievement of the objectives of the twelve 15-minute programs dealing…

The application of latent trait theory to classroom tests necessitates the use of small sample sizes for parameter estimation. Computer generated data were used to assess the accuracy of estimation of the slope and location parameters in the two parameter logistic model with fixed abilities and varying small sample sizes. The maximum likelihood…

The Rasch model of test theory is described in general terms, compared with latent trait theory, and shown to have interesting applications for the measurement of affective as well as cognitive traits. Three assumption of the Rasch model are stated to support the conclusion that calibration of the items and tests is independent of the examinee…

To investigate the effect of violating the assumption of equal item difficulty on Kuder-Richardson (KR) Formula 21 reliability coefficient, 670 eighth-and ninth- grade students were administered 26 short, homogeneous "tests" of mathematics concepts and skills. Both KR Formula 20 and KR Formula 21 were used to estimate reliability on each…

The adequacy of a test developed for statewide assessment of basic mathematics skills was investigated. The test, comprised of multiple-choice items reflecting a series of behavioral objectives, was compared with a more extensive criterion measure generated from the same objectives by the application of a strict item sampling model. In many…

For a sample of 270 students who sought on their own initiative counseling on academic, career, vocational, and personal matters at a university counseling and testing center, intercorrelations of their responses to 20 statements on the Evaluation of Counselors Scale were factor-analyzed. Tables of results are presented and discussed. (Author/JKS)

A higher than expected correlation between "passages in" and "passages out" scores on reading comprehension tests indicated that the practical importance of passage dependence is probably not as great as has been commonly believed. (Editor)

Binary, probability, and ordinal scoring procedures for multiple-choice items were examined. In two situations, it was found that both the probability and ordinal scoring systems were more reliable than the binary scoring method. (Author/CTM)

Providing examinees with advanced knowledge of the difficulty of an item led to an increase in test performance with no loss of reliability. This finding was consistent across several test formats. ( Author/JKS)

One hundred-fifty subjects studied a passage with questions interspersed at different locations. Total level of acquisition was highest in treatments involving postquestions and no questions. The results were attributed to the influence of adjunct questions on learner expectations that affect the selective processing of information. (Author/JAC)