To permit local districts to exercise their option to use standardized tests for state-mandated evaluations, a test rating form was developed. A key concern was the percentage of state approved reading and mathematics skills measured by a test, rather than the test's value for other uses. Other content concerns were readability and cultural and…

To meet the instructional needs of the hundreds of children who speak the Ladin and Surselvan Raeto-Romance dialects of Switzerland, spelling categories pertinent to the two dialects were established based on the spelling test concept of Rudolf Mueller. Following classic test analysis procedures, three diagnostic dictation tests (one in Ladin, two…

The revised and renamed Strong Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII) is examined to determine if the occupational and sex biases present in the older Strong Vocational Interest Blank (SVIB) were eliminated. It is concluded that an occupational bias (favoring professional rather than blue-collar occupations) still exists in the SCII, although there is…

Reflections on past and future uses of intelligence tests are presented. Three current approaches to intelligence tests are described: (1) neural efficiency, which relates the speed or quality of functioning of the neural system to test results; (2) information processing--cognitive micro-processes used in solving test items; and (3)…

Eighth grade students, in response to a pictorial stimulus (either an intact picture, or a series), were instructed to write either a story (which would be enjoyable for another eighth grader) or a description (which would help another eighth grader visualize the picture). Thirty responses from each of the four task conditions were then analyzed.…

The College Outcome Measures Project (COMP) was organized to design, develop, validate, and disseminate assessment instruments and procedures to measure and evaluate the knowledge and skills that undergraduate students are expected to acquire as a result of general or liberal education programs, as well as those important to effective functioning…

Events of this conference on military testing centered on (1) an open panel meeting and discussion on the testing of Project 100,000 personnel (potential rejectees accepted under new standards); and (2) over two dozen papers dealing with specific aptitude and proficiency tests, a comparison of marginal and control Naval personnel on biographical…

Random polygons were used as stimuli in a two-choice multiple discrimination learning paradigm designed to test individual learning ability. A nonverbal test was developed in order to avoid the cultural and racial bias which, according to the author, is inherent in verbal tests. Information processing rate (IPR) was used as the measure of learning…

TAILOR is a computer program that uses the implied orders concept as the basis for computerized adaptive testing. The basic characteristics of TAILOR, which does not involve pretesting, are reviewed here and two studies of it are reported. One is a Monte Carlo simulation based on the four-parameter Birnbaum model and the other uses a matrix of…

Six school districts in California provided data on the Public School Version of the Adaptive Behavior Scale for 373 children, ages three through six, who were enrolled in regular and trainable mentally retarded (TMR) preschool programs. The results of the study are reported as means and standard deviations of the domain scores for Part One and…

Distractors, the incorrect responses to an item on a multiple-choice test, should be designed to create confusion in the minds of some students and to permit a competent student to be able to see that they are wrong. It is possible, by close scrutiny, to isolate the sources of this confusion and, by looking at a statistical analysis, to find out…

Written to assist future researchers in conducting cross-national studies of classroom behaviors, this study indicates a number of factors which may reduce the validity of comparisons made. It is based on an investigation which explored the feasibility of using the Activities Categories Instrument and the Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories…

Confined to existing monetary and human resources, the Navy's Postgraduate Selection Board is responsible for selecting officers for graduate education who will both perform well and develop skills applicable to later Navy billets. Although different methods have been employed for this selection process, most decisions have been based on officer…

This guide first points out the difficulty and the lack of reliability involved in using tests to evaluate the abilities of children from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds. Suggestions are then given for using existing evaluation techniques to test the English language proficiency of children at kindergarten level. The following…

The purpose of the study was to develop an instrument to assess the career awareness possessed by elementary school children in order to provide base-line information for curriculum decisions. The instrument was formulated from established career content resources congruent with developmental theory. Validation was accomplished with data collected…