A study of the Israeli "bagrut" (maturity examination) correlated number of absences from class with class grades ("magen") and with examination grades for 300 students. Although negative relationships were found in both cases, the subjectivity of internally based, subject-teacher assessment makes it a questionable part of the…

PLANA is a training program for subject matter analysis and construction of instructional objectives. This investigation tries to find out whether education students in the PLANA program differ from other students on planning instruction processes. (BW)

The Regression Model, popular in selection bias research, is proposed for use in item bias detection, providing a common framework for both types of bias. An empirical test of this new method, now called the Regression Bias method, and a comparison with other commonly used item bias detection methods are presented. (Author/BS)

Reports findings of a study conducted at a midwestern university to determine whether a battery of basic skills tests would accurately predict student success in professional education courses. Concludes that test performance was consistent with the general grade point average throughout the college. (FL)

Describes a study that focused on measures of reading comprehension using responses from subjects during the reading process--specifically, oral reading errors. Concludes that the scores obtained adequately predicted reading comprehension performance. (FL)

Discusses the problems associated with "grading on a curve," the approach often used for standard setting on language proficiency tests. Proposes four main steps presented in the setting of a non-arbitrary cut-score. These steps not only establish a proficiency standard checked by external criteria, but also check to see that the test covers the…

The author argues that scoring, reporting, and deriving final grades can be considerably assisted by using a computer. He also contends that the savings in time and the computer database formed will allow instructors to determine test quality and reflect on the quality of instruction. (BW)

Using predictive validity studies of the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) and the undergraduate grade-point average (UGPA), this study examined the large variation in the magnitude of the validity coefficients across schools. LSAT standard deviation and correlation between LSAT and UGPA accounted for 58.5 percent of the variability. (Author/EGS)

"Listening Recall" is a listening comprehension test which discriminates over a wide range of proficiency. Unlike traditional tests, requiring multiple choice responses, it is a listening cloze procedure; a narrative passage accompanied by a written version with deletions. Particularly suited to low proficiency learners, test has high…

The Parent as a Teacher Inventory, a measure of parents' feelings and beliefs regarding interaction with their young children, was administered to 615 parents of preschool children. The failure to validate the subsets illustrates the complexity of parenting behavior and the difficulties with content vs. construct validity. (Author/PN)

Provides a bibliography of published research papers that either describe the history of the TOEFL, offer a critical review of the test, or interpret TOEFL research findings. Some topics include: the correlation of TOEFL with other standardized tests of English language proficiency, TOEFL's role as a predictor of academic performance, the…

The Test of Emotional Styles measures three broad dimensions of emotionality: responsiveness, expressiveness, and orientation. This study examined the relationships between the forced-choice Test of Emotional Styles dimensions and measures of related constructs. The patterns of correlations generally support the construct validity of the test.…

Reviews the test titled Psychological Testing of Minorities and notes that this book brings to the forum by which education may be made accessible to the underprivileged people of society without penalizing them for not belonging to the middle class mainstream culture. (Author/AM)

Defends the use of multiple-choice language tests against Pickering's criticism in a previous issue of this journal. (CHK)

The validity of a learning potential assessment procedure with institutionalized moderately and severely retarded adolescents and adults was examined with 38 Ss. (Author)