This report of the California State Postsecondary Education Commission discusses standardized testing at the higher education level in California and is comprised of three parts. Part 1 describes six tests related to undergraduate admission, placement, and financial assistance. Part 2 describes five tests required by graduate programs and…

Chapter 188 of the Massachusetts Acts of 1985 established a statewide testing program that began in 1986. The Massachusetts Testing Program functions to improve curriculum and instruction in the public schools and districts, identify students needing assistance in mastering basic skills in the classroom, and make results available to the public.…

Whether or not working with more realistic and lengthier problems during instruction would make students better able to solve similar problems on achievement tests was studied for 82 seventh graders (50 in the experimental condition and 32 in the control condition) in general mathematics classes at an urban middle school. The study also…

The Mississippi Teacher Assessment Instruments (MTAIs) contain 16 teaching competencies (14 competencies measured by 3 separate instruments of the MTAI, and 2 performance standards assessed by the local district). The Teaching Plans and Materials MTAI guides assessment of beginning teachers' competence in planning instruction, selecting…

To answer several questions about the Ohio statewide high school proficiency testing program, correlations of student performance on the ninth-grade proficiency test with other measures of reading and mathematics were studied for approximately 4,600 students in the Cleveland (Ohio) City School District. The performance of students from higher…

The partial credit model of G. N. Masters (1982), a one-parameter unidimensional polychotomous Rasch model, was used to reduce the error of measurement, particularly for students near the cut score, and to permit measurement to reflect the actual ability of a student more accurately by reducing the degree of misfit for students near the cut…

This document consists of a curriculum guide combined with separately published "simulations" and "test bank" volumes designed to support instructors using the curriculum guide. The curriculum guide was developed to provide instructional materials to teachers of microcomputer application courses in Texas. The guide contains the…

Problems associated with criterion-referenced language testing are discussed in the context of both standardized proficiency testing and classroom assessment. First, different interpretations of criterion-referencing are examined. A range of approaches for defining criteria and performance levels in second language assessment are outlined, and…

In the spring of 1990, over 9,000 4th-, 8th- and 12th-grade students (only 6 percent of all students in Massachusetts) were assessed using open-ended mathematical, scientific, social studies, and reading concepts. Beginning with the Massachusetts Educational Assessment Program for 1992, open-ended questions will be administered to all students and…

This collection of 14 articles look at the issues in theory and application that arise in the use of simplification in language pedagogy. Articles include the following: (1) "Simplification in Pedagogy" (Christopher Brumfit); (2) "Simplification" (H. V. George); (3) "Fossilization as Simplification?" (Larry Selinker);…

A preliminary investigation was conducted of the construct validity of the Inventory of Classroom Management Style (ICMS), a scale to measure differences in perceptions of classroom management style. The main objective was to determine if the scale reflects differences between novice and experienced teachers. Classroom management is defined as a…

Whether state average test scores on the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Trial State Assessment in mathematics should be used to compare and rank states according to the quality or proficiency of their educational programs is examined. Data from eighth graders from the Trial State Assessment are analyzed. Analysis shows…

This document is a compendium of reports prepared for presentation to each of North Carolina's 134 local school systems by the State Board of Education. Each report summarizes student performance in the system for 1989-90 in table and graph form and permits a comparison with student performance in preceding years. These reports satisfy a state…

The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a statewide content verification survey (CVS) of teachers to verify an initial set of System for Teaching and Learning Assessment and Review (STAR) teaching and learning components as being reasonable expectations for beginning and/or experienced teachers in Louisiana. The draft STAR was…

A Cuyahoga County (Ohio) project developed a multiagency, comprehensive basic skills improvement system designed to increase the employability of people receiving public assistance, out-of-school youth, and Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) clients. An advisory committee composed of individuals representing the collaborative groups was…