Five interrelated papers that explore the theme of validity within the context of cross-national assessments are grouped in this collection. These papers were presented at a symposium at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. These papers draw on data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).…

The report describes one segment of the Federal Language Testing Board's Unified Language Testing Plan (ULTP), the validation of the speaking proficiency test in Russian. The ULTP is a project to increase standardization of foreign language proficiency measurement and promote sharing of resources among testing programs in the federal government.…

The final project report on development of an advanced Russian language listening and reading proficiency test is presented. It summarizes activities in the second year of the project, including dissemination of summer 1985 test validation results to participating higher education institutions, item analyses, completion of the final test edition,…

This study evaluated the construct validity of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Third Edition (WISC-III) with children (ages 8 to 13) having learning disabilities who were either Hispanic (N=120) or Non-Hispanic white (N=120). Factor analyses found that the WISC III has a three factor structure consisting of verbal comprehension,…

This booklet examines fundamental technical and implementation issues involved with large-scale, on-demand performance assessments and teacher-constructed, classroom-based performance assessments, especially for use with students who have disabilities. It discusses definitions and core concepts, outlines theoretical matters, reviews research on…

Research has shown that, when administered properly, kindergarten readiness screening results are associated closely with future school success. The Dallas Preschool Screening Test (DPST) is one of many such instruments used to determine school readiness and predict school success. A study sought to determine the effectiveness of the DPST in…

Developments in the measurement and theory of creativity are reviewed, and the present status of creativity vis-a-vis psychometrics and theory is explored. The realm of creativity has been a quagmire of definition problems, with creativity variously defined in terms of process or stages. In past eras, creativity was essentially measured by output…

The reliability and validity of teacher ratings, the relationship between teacher ratings and principal self-reports of instructional leadership, and the degree to which they are influenced by demographic factors are examined in this study. Methodology involved completion of the Instructional Leadership Inventory, a self-report measure, by 81…

A study demonstrated the utility of item analyses to investigate which items function well or poorly in a second language reading recall protocol instrument. Data were drawn from a larger study of 56 learners of German as a second language at various proficiency levels. Pausal units of scored recall protocols were analyzed using both classical…

To assess the written and verbal communication skills of the approximately 100 deaf and hard-of-hearing students attending the College of Business at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is a real challenge. The only way for most of these students to satisfy the College of Business' general writing competency requirement was to take the…

The purpose of this study was to compare two non-parametric procedures, the Mantel-Haenszel (MH) procedure and the simultaneous item bias (SIB) procedure, with respect to their Type I error rates and power, and to investigate the conditions under which asymptotic distributional properties of the SIB and MH were obtained. Data were simulated to…

Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) scores and final course grades from over 8,000 high school students at 50 schools were gathered to determine the validity of ASVAB Form 14 for the prediction of high school course grades. Grades were collected for courses taken during the academic year in which students were tested on the ASVAB…

One of the most pernicious effects of stress is its effect on the ability of children and youths to function in the classroom. This study examined the factor structure of the Coping Resources Inventory for Educational Enhancement (CRISEE), an instrument designed to measure the coping resources and stressor load of children and youth. Participants…

Due to concern for test security and fairness, three new performance-based English placement test writing prompts were developed in a large midwestern university for incoming students of English as a second language, and the degree of prompt variability was investigated from multiple perspectives, including "fit-to-specification,"…

Little information exists as to the efficacy of using the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) as a predictor of success for nontraditional students' graduate studies. Since many students in doctoral education programs are nontraditional matriculants, an investigation of the relationship between GRE scores and student success in one such program is…