The purpose of this study was to determine associations between science and mathematics students' perceptions of their classroom learning environments, the cultural backgrounds and gender of students, and their attitudinal and achievement outcomes. The subjects were 3,994 students from 182 secondary school science and mathematics classes in 35…

An evaluation was conducted to examine the structure and design of the Continuous Progress Report (CPR), an observation scale used to measure students' early developmental skills in the District of Columbia public schools. Item construction and the relative consistency of measurement constructs in the CPR were the specific focus of the evaluation.…

The North Carolina End-of-Grade Testing Program is based on the assessment of higher level skills in the context of specific subject-area content. These tests inform students, parents, the community, and educators about the achievement of North Carolina students in grades three through eight in given areas. This report describes the development…

Using data from the same source as that employed in Herrnstein and Murray's book, "The Bell Curve," this study reexamined links between the test scores of mothers and children, paying close attention to what the scores measure and whether these measurements mean the same things for blacks and whites. The study replicated Herrnstein and…

A major argument against evaluation of teacher performance by students pertains to the instruments being used. Colleges conduct instructional evaluation using instruments they devise, borrow, adopt, or adapt from other institutions. Whether these instruments are tested for content validity is unknown. This study determined how evaluation questions…

This report documents efforts to develop instruments for data-gathering and to train field staff in the use of the instruments, as part of a feasibility study designed to validate a conceptual framework that describes the elements of California's special education prereferral and alternative assessment procedures for ethno-linguistically diverse…

The book is designed to help language teachers write better tests, taking the view that test construction is an exercise in problem-solving, with every teaching situation presenting a different problem that an understanding of the underlying principles of testing can help solve. Examples are given from testing of English as a Second Language…

This manual is a revision of the manual originally published in 1983. Since then it has been discovered that stimulus drawing tasks, like the Drawing from Imagination subtest of the Silver Drawing Test of Cognitive and Creative Skills (SDT), can be used to screen for depression and emotional adjustment. New research findings are the basis for…

This paper describes a workshop designed to lead teachers toward the use of open ended response questions rather than multiple choice items. The rationale was based on the assumption that assessment will become more authentic because it will measure depth of understanding and deal with both content and process. Authentic assessment is defined as…

A two-dimensional, compensatory item response model and a unidimensional model were fitted to the reading and mathematics items in the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-Revised for a sample of 1,000 adults aged 20-39 years. Multidimensional information theory predicts that if the unidimensional abilities can be represented as vectors in…

The Brigance K&1 test is a battery of 12 subtests widely used to identify entering kindergarten children in need of more comprehensive evaluation. To gather data on the reliability of the test, an analysis was conducted of results for 134 children from low socioeconomic backgrounds. The children were administered both the Brigance K&1…

The reliability, validity, and factor structure of the Charles F. Kettering Scale, an instrument for the development of personnel and programs in schools, were investigated. The 40-item General Climate Factors section of the scale, a measure of educational environment, was completed by 30 administrators and teachers, 78 ninth graders, 66 eighth…

The inter-subject/intra-subject subtest patterns (profiles) of the same sample of gifted children were examined based on factors found in a previous study of the Raven Coloured Progressive Matrices Test (CPM) that investigated structural properties with specific application to a sample of gifted children. The sample consisted of 166 children (78…

Two courses on logic gates were administered to 1,191 male and female recruits in Basic Military Training in 3 studies (448, 431, and 312 subjects, respectively) to evaluate the relative validities of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) and the Learning Abilities Measurement Program (LAMP) tests in predicting individual…

A working model of self-regulated learning based on the literature was developed together with an inventory of 71 items designed to test the five dimensions of the model: metacognition, learning strategies, motivation, contextual sensitivity, and environmental utilization/control. A five-point Likert scale was used to rank the items. Subjects were…