Northampton County Area Community College (Pennsylvania) studied changes in student writing ability using a research paradigm described in the ERIC Clearinghouse for Junior Colleges' fifth topical paper (ED 030 422). Students in seven English classes were randomly assigned to write on one of two topics at the beginning of the semester, and asked…

This booklet comprises excerpts from the proceedings of a conference held in Maryland to explore the related themes of accountability and the evaluation of compensatory education. Participants at the conference were administrators, teachers, aides, and parents who met in small-group work sessions. The conference is judged to have succeeded in…

The focus of this conference was on aspects of change in education and testing. Two papers concern the special role of evaluation in new conceptions of instruction and learning. The first involves individually prescribed instruction in elementary school, and second, professional education. Both in the paper on computer-based instruction and in the…

The Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT) yields raw scores, standard scores, and percentile scores for reading skill, spelling skill, and arithmetic computational skill, and is applicable for determining student competence in these areas for pre-kindergarten through college level. Because national norms on the 1965 revised WRAT are not, however,…

Both criterion-referenced and norm-referenced measures are useful tools to the classroom teacher, but each has its specific uses. The criterion-referenced measure is useful when one is interested in whether an individual possesses particular competencies and when there are no quotas as to how many possess that skill. It is particularly useful in…

This compilation of descriptions of State testing programs is based upon responses to a mail survey of the departments of education in the 50 States, the Canal Zone, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. It was found that 42 of these offer 74 testing programs (with 18 offering two or more), 9 provide only limited testing services, and 8 do…

Ten community colleges in Texas sent participants to a faculty and administrators' conference, whose purpose was to discuss all points covering basic-studies programs and to see where consensus and differences of opinion existed among the people who actually operate those programs. This transcript of the conference covers the following topics: (1)…

Consideration is given to the degree of congruence between objectives and test items in the evaluation of objective-based testing. An analytic technique that measures congruence is described, and a bibliography is provided. (CK)

The Pupil Evaluation Program is a fall testing program required of all pupils in grades 3, 6, and 9 in the public and nonpublic schools of New York State. The program was originally established to provide information vital to the efficient management of ESEA Title I funds. It now provides an annual Statewide school-by-school inventory of pupil…

This document is an English-language abstract (approximately 1,500 words) of part of a comprehensive research project concerning the Finnish matriculation examination. The goal of the project was to explore the matriculation examination as a series of tests indicative of ability differences between individuals, regardless of their causes. The…

A standardized achievement testing program was begun in Alum Rock, California in the fall of 1972 as part of an evaluation of an Educational Voucher Demonstration. During each of the first three years of the demonstration both the form of test administration and the particular level of the standardized achievement test that a student is assigned…

Reviews some of the specific issues that underlie the testing controversy and suggests that it has become increasingly difficult to separate the issue of testing from the realities of a political situation which leaves black children at the mercy of a unified white majority that is often indifferent to their educational welfare. (Author/AM)

Cattell emphasizes that research on the personality structure should precede scale development; in this way, personality tests will approach the precision of ability tests. He discusses testing trends and the contribution of personality tests to the school setting--specifically to the prediction of achievement, underachievement, problem behavior,…

Programed instruction in sex knowledge was presented via computer to 30 college students under varying conditions of informational feedback delay (IF). Immediate feedback following each response was compared with feedback following a 15-second delay for each response. Delay conditions provided significantly more retention than immediate…