A pamphlet on how to make use of the results of the Illinois Statewide High School Testing Program in an individual school is presented. The 1973-74 testing program includes tests of academic aptitude, reading comprehension and knowledge, communication skills, and mathematical skills. The program reports contain the raw scores of the students in…

The last in a series of eight reports on mental retardation in a Canadian province presented statistical data on raw scores for the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), the Vineland Social Maturity Scale (SMS), and the Draw-A-Person (DAP) test by age/sex categories as administered for the study. Isolation of subsamples of the mentally…

The 54 papers related to test development, interpretation, and use that were presented at the 1972 AERA Conference are reviewed. The papers were classified into 11 categories, as follows: A. What to measure--educational objectives; attitude measurement; and creativity; B. How to measure--item types; test development; response modifications;…

Comparisons of majority and minority group regression lines for purposes of assessing test bias may, under certain conditions, be viewed as comparisons of conditional bivariate distributions. Where these conditions hold, findings should reveal parallel regression lines except for a special case. Given the conditions described, one implication is…

Validity coefficients, standard errors of estimate, and prediction are discussed. An argument is made for the potential utility of tests with validity coefficients of .60, .50, .40, and even .30, because they can predict the extremes, which is especially valuable for many purposes, such as counseling, college admissions, and personnel selection.…

Ways are suggested in which validation studies may be carried out by personnel workers who use tests in selection and placement. The correlational techniques discussed are the product-moment correlation coefficient, biserial correlation coefficient, tetrachoric coefficient of correlation. The summarizing techniques (a term used to refer to methods…

The use of narrative test reports overcomes the major barrier to understanding reports, understanding the language that is used. Early attempts to utilize the computer in generating narrative reports include: (1) Teaching Information Processing System (TIPS), involving periodic collection of information from students regarding courses, which is…

The coefficient of precision type of reliability originally defined for scalar variables is generalized to vector variables and named vector reliability. The new coefficient ranges from zero to one. Additional basic properties of vector reliability are derived. Vector information is defined as a simple function of vector reliability. A number of…

A critical examination is made of standardized social studies achievement tests from a psychometric and reading perspective. Five major issues are identified that detract from the meaningful interpretation of student performance on standardized social studies tests. The issues discussed are (1) the reading dependency of social studies items, (2)…

Fifteen descriptive statistics were computed for 345 instructor made multiple-choice optically scanned tests for the purpose of evaluating the quality of classroom test at the university level as well as the appropriateness of the evaluating statistics. The description and analysis of the average test represented a realistic lower bound of…

This report documents (1) the problems inherent in multiple choice testing, (2) a solution to the problems, and (3) computer programs required by the solution. Problems of multiple choice testing include scheduling inflexibility, methodological inflexibility, cheating, inefficiencies of space and student interaction time, inefficiencies of…

A defense of the use of standards with criterion-referenced testing is made in response to Glass's article (TM 504 031). (JKS)

Two procedures for the display of item analysis statistics are described. One procedure allows for investigation of difficulty; the second plots item difficulty against item discrimination. (Author/JKS)

A procedure for estimating the reliability of a factorially complex composite is considered. An application of its use with Scholastic Aptitude Test data is provided. (Author/JKS)

Thirty-two potentially significant clinical signs that may appear on children's Kinetic Family Drawings are presented in the form of an interpretive guide. Cautions and benefits of using such a guide are discussed briefly. (Author)