An attempt was made to develop an objective instrument to assess a teacher's perceived engagement in reflective practice. A Reflective Teaching Instrument (RTI) was developed around three dimensions of reflective practice in teaching: (1) diagnosis (problem setting); (2) testing; and (3) personal causation. Indicators of each of the dimensions…

The ability of the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) and undergraduate grade point average (GPA) to predict success in medical school was studied, and two complementary methods of determining if the tests are biased against ethnic groups were examined. Data from 497 majority and 82 minority medical students at the College of Human Medicine at…

The objective of this project was to develop a valid and reliable multiple choice test of six basic science process skills for students in grades 4 to 8 (ages 8 to 14 years). Seven criteria were outlined for the test: an emphasis on the six most widely used science process skills (observation, inference, prediction, measurement, communication, and…

Mississippi students are now being tested at almost every grade level. Passage of the Functional Literacy Examination (FLE) will be a prerequisite for a high school diploma beginning with the 1989 graduating class. This emphasis on testing, without an accompanying commitment to ensuring all students equal access to a full academic core curriculum,…

This paper isolates and examines separately three distinct sources of error in essay scores: lack of agreement between raters; inconsistencies in performance within mode of discourse, and inconsistencies in performance between modes of discourse. Essay prompts in the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) Writing Supplement were designed to assess…

Eighty Singapore teachers voluntarily participated in the evaluation of three new scales: (1) the Responsibility Scale, which measures the teacher's sense of responsibility, willingness to take on additional new duties, and perception of being assigned duties; (2) the Change Scale which measures the teacher's acceptance of changes in life as…

The cultural bias of the Adult Performance Level Assessment, Form AA-l (APLA) was examined. The potential influence of cultural differences on scores of a major ethnic group, Acadians or Cajuns, was investigated. Assessment items most prone to produce differences in scores were isolated and administered to selected groups. No significant…

A review of literature serves as the basis for a discussion of various aspects of criterion-referenced tests. The aspects discussed are: teaching and evaluation objectives, criterion- and norm-referenced measurement, stages in construction of criterion-referenced tests, construction and selection of items, test validity, and test reliability.…

While language testing specialists agree on the importance of their field and that the intelligent application of language testing approaches, techniques, and methods to the classroom can improve the overall quality of language learning and teaching, that opinion may not be shared by teachers. Few teachers have training in language testing, and…

This paper summarizes and analyzes data from studies of differential validity and differential prediction for blacks versus whites and females versus males. Forty studies on racial differences and 53 on gender differences were selected from searches of the ERIC, PsychInfo, and Dissertation Abstracts International databases; Buros' Mental…

The development and assessment of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test (WRMT) is described in this paper. The first section, after a brief description of the test, outlines the development of the test, including its purpose, how it was tested and calibrated, its administration and scoring, use and interpretation of scores obtained, and statistical…

The migrant lifestyle, in which a student moves to a new school nearly three times per year, destroys the continuity of educational programs and contributes to abnormally high dropout rates. Educational testing can help improve educational continuity for migrant students by yielding valuable information about their levels of skills mastery so they…

Addressed to all concerned with reading assessment, including teachers, administrators, testmakers, and policymakers, this book describes some of the major problems involved in reading assessment and provides guidelines for the improved use of reading tests. The first chapter, on reading measurement in perspective, discusses the historical context…

Part I summarizes data on the final version of the Student Self-Report, an affective, multiple-chioce questionnaire developed to measure the kinds of behavioral and attitudinal chanqes which elementary counselors most often attempt to produce when providing services to students in Grades 3-6. Part I contains reliability and validity data for the…

The supplementary information on "Alberta Essay Scales: Models" presented here includes similar models to employ in grading essays, the background and development of the scales, and the rationale for developing two scales of English mechanics and style/content. A standard is presented for evaluating current writing achievement by…