The primary purpose of the South Carolina Statewide Testing Program is to assess the achievement of fourth, seventh, and tenth grade public school students. Test results provide educators with information which facilitates the decision-making process. For the second time, Form U of the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills was the instrument used to…

Drawing from information submitted by 60 urban, rural, and suburban institutions, this report documents the progress of California's community colleges in implementing the first phase of a statewide matriculation plan. Introductory material defines matriculation as a process that promotes and sustains the efforts of students to reach their…

Test-wiseness is discussed in the newsletter of Programs for Educational Opportunity (PEO), a combined race, gender, and national origin desegregation assistance center providing technical information to eligible public schools in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. PEO is based on the belief that specific teaching of test…

Issues in preparing a review form to detect item bias in tests are discussed and the first draft of an item bias review form is presented. While stereotyping is the consistent representation of a given group in a particular light, bias is the presence of some characteristic of an item that results in differential performance of two individuals of…

This paper outlines some initiatives taken to change and improve senior high school programs and diploma requirements in Alberta, Canada, as originally stated in the June 1985 policy statement, "Secondary Education in Alberta." It is intended to assist educational groups planning to revise a senior high school program. It also presents…

The processing of incoming psychological information along the network, or schemata, of self-knowledge was studied to determine the convergent and discriminant validity of the patterns of schemata-specific response latencies. Fifty-three female and 52 male university students completed the Basic Personality Inventory (BPI). BPI scales assess…

This book is intended primarily for persons about to take the university psychometric entrance examination in Israel, particularly those who want more information than is provided in the standard explanation booklets. The book can also be used by candidates for employment in the public or private sector who are required to take psychological…

A survey to gather information concerning school district testing programs in Pennsylvania is reviewed. The information concerns the commercially produced norm referenced and criterion referenced achievement tests, as well as locally produced achievement tests used in the state's school districts. The Pennsylvania Division of Educational Testing…

Approximately 1200 Danish school children aged 8, 11, and 14 participated in a questionnaire study under the caption, "Why I like to read." Data from Denmark formed part of an international study, in which 12 other countries used the same questionnaire to explore various functions of reading and to compare them over different countries.…

This report summarizes the results of a consultation that addressed the issue of the state role in attempts to reduce the minority teacher shortage in the south. Participants in the consultation made suggestions that should be considered by governors, state legislatures, state education agencies, and local school districts in working with the…

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…

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…

A study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of interactive video in teaching study skills and to discover: (1) the overall attitudes of students toward computer-directed instruction (CDI) as compared to traditional teaching methods; (2) whether two groups, instructed via CDI and traditional methods, differed significantly in knowledge of…

This investigation examined the influence of sample size on different goodness-of-fit indices used in confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The first two data sets were derived from large normative samples of responses to a multidimensional self-concept instrument and to a multidimensional instrument used to assess students' evaluations of teaching…

Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) validity data on disabled students were obtained from 145 institutions with validity data on nonhandicapped students. First year grade point averages (FYAs) were obtained for almost 1,000 disabled students who had taken special test administrations of the SAT with extra time and for more than 650 disabled students…