Examines standards in language testing, in the context of the legal framework of the United States and the United Kingdom. The article argues that research into test reliability and validity by testing bodies in the United States has a legal basis and examines areas in which examination boards offering English as a foreign language tests in…

Presents a validation study on the Hausa Speaking Test (HAST), a simulated oral proficiency interview. Addressed validity of the HaST through examination of the ratability on the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) scale of elicited speech sample and an investigation of the nature of probes on the HaST through speaking…

Tested the validity of the Brigid Collins Risk Screener (BCRS) to assess child abuse risk in a sample of 49 expectant mothers. Found that at 3 months postpartum, high-risk mothers scored significantly lower on the quality of infants' physical, social, and emotional environments than moderate or low-risk mothers. Concluded that the BCRS appears to…

A study compared the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) with the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised in 61 children (ages 4-16) with autism. Correlations between the test scores for DSM-IV criterion sets were on the order of 0.7. SRS scores were unrelated to I.Q. and exhibited inter-rater reliability on the order of 0.8. (Contains references.)…

Examined the construct and concurrent validity of the Parenting Behavior Questionnaire-Head Start (PBQ-HS) with low-income African-American families with preschoolers, and whether parenting styles differed by caregiver characteristics. Derived Active-Responsive, Active-Restrictive, and Passive-Permissive parenting dimensions; the last differed…

Tested the reliability and validity of a teacher-completed checklist to identify movement difficulties in a sample of 3- to 5-year-olds. Analysis showed that the checklist identified movement difficulties and found significant differences between children who displayed movement difficulties and those who did not. Interrater reliability and…

Two studies investigated the developmental trends and concurrent validity of the Language Proficiency Profile-2 (LPP-2), a measure of language and communication skills for deaf children. Results indicate that the LPP-2 has good utility not only as a measure of overall language development but also as a predictor of achievement for English language…

Twenty-two children with mild mental retardation, 27 children with learning disabilities, and 49 nondisabled peers (ages 4-5) were presented with a battery of eight cognitive tasks being considered for inclusion in a new screening test. Results found the components measured different cognitive tasks and led to accurate individual classification…

Describes development and use of the Course Experience Questionnaire to measure perceived teaching quality in higher education, and construction of a new generic teaching skills scale. Evaluation with large multidisciplinary samples in Australia confirmed reliability and validity of both short and long forms. Criterion and discriminant validity…

This study, third in a series using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), demonstrates the usefulness of multidimensional representation of mathematics achievement as it extends analyses through grade 12. Findings support a distinction between mathematical reasoning and knowledge for two of the three test forms.…

The usefulness of small-scale interview studies to explore the validity of science achievement tests in several formats was studied with 141 high school students and 49 fifth and sixth graders. Results, which provided evidence of test validity, also support the use of small-scale qualitative interviews in test validation. (SLD)

Calculated intra-cognitive strengths and weaknesses of children in grades 1 through 12, using two common criteria for defining exceptionality. Found that an individual's total number of significant intra-cognitive strengths and/or weaknesses has little diagnostic significance as pertains to low- or under-achievement in reading, mathematics, or…

Examines the construct validity of a scale for 7-year-old children and analyzes the degree of factorial similarity between this analysis and another study performed on 4-year-old children. Results indicate that the cognitive abilities measured by the scale become more general with age and the level of schooling. (RJM)

Compares the predictive and concurrent validities of a learning efficiency test with that of another test. Memory factor scores of the learning efficiency test correlated significantly with the other test's scores, with class grades, and with actual grade-level functioning in reading. The learning efficiency test's validity compares favorably to…

Tested an attachment model using 630 late adolescents. The resulting data fit the model reasonably well. The gender of parent differences emerged, in which attachment to father was a more important predictor of social competence than was attachment to mother. Social competence proved a significant predictor of emotional adjustment. (RJM)