A fourteen item Likert-type attitude scale concerning a college-level basic skills program was developed from topics suggested by the program staff. The scale was completed by 216 college freshmen who were enrolled in at least one of the three courses offered by the program: writing and reading, study habits and thinking strategies, and…

This paper discusses an investigation that compared college students' reading gains when using general or specific diagnosis. It reports that significant gains were made on many subskills of the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test by the group that had the prescriptions developed as a result of a differential (specific) diagnosis and that there were…

A study was conducted to measure the effect and compare the results of developmental reading instruction for college students as prescribed from the specific results of a diagnostic reading test and a general, more traditionally used, survey reading test. The sample consisted of 226 students enrolled in different sections of a reading course…

THE DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION (MLA) FOREIGN LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY TESTS FOR TEACHERS AND ADVANCED STUDENTS ARE THE SUBJECTS OF THIS FINAL PROJECT REPORT. FOLLOWING AN ACCOUNT OF THE EVENTS THAT LED TO THE AWARDING OF A GOVERNMENT CONTRACT TO MLA TO DEVELOP NATIONALLY STANDARDIZED QUALIFICATION TESTS AND A…

The hypothesis that role-playing scenarios specifying full rhetorical contexts were a superior means of eliciting valid writing samples for the purpose of assessing compositional skills of prospective Florida teachers was tested. In addition, topics for use on the initial administrations of the Florida Teacher Competency Examination's writing…

The Children's Attitude toward Reading Test (CHART) is presented, as well as the first draft of a technical manual describing its use. The test booklet consists of 36 unsystematically ordered pictures. Each picture represents a reading situation (instructional, school recreational, home recreational, and outdoor recreational reading) that has…

After a brief historical review of the development of English polytechnics, focus is on the methodology of a behaviorally referenced student feedback instrument (AID) for determining areas of difficulty. Four possible models for the feedback instrument are cited; three are ruled out. The Instructional Development by Evaluation and Assessment…

The New York State Board of Regents and the State Education Department have approved a plan to implement a written licensing examination as the first step in a process to professionalize teaching. However, important issues and questions are raised when considering this testing component, such as: (1) the questionable validity of tests already in…

A live tailored achievement testing study was conducted to compare procedures based on the one- and three-parameter logistic models. Previous studies yielded inconclusive results because of the procedures by which item calibrations were linked and because of the item selection procedures. Using improved procedures, 83 college students were tested…

The Racial Attitudes and Perceptions Survey (RAPS) was developed to obtain information from black and white military personnel, including reports of the frequencies of specific discriminatory behaviors and the tension levels associated with each race. The instrument was evaluated in terms of its construct validity and its reliability. Attitudes…

This speech deals with the assumptions and approaches underlying educational assessment and suggests alternatives to standardized testing. It is proposed that the assumption that test items can be standardized is at the base of assessment problems; while there are standard mental functions which children develop, there are no standard items that…

The reliability and validity of the Student Opinion Survey of Teaching (SOST) were assessed, and normative data were provided for judging its value in the evaluation of faculty teaching. Data were collected from 2,229 students enrolled in 93 classes taught by 53 instructors in 12 academic disciplines at the University of Windsor, Ontario. Internal…

Six approaches to assessing test item bias were examined: transformed item difficulty, point biserial correlations, chi-square, factor analysis, one parameter item characteristic curve, and three parameter item characteristic curve. Data sets for analysis were generated by a Monte Carlo technique based on the three parameter model; thus, four…

Threats to the validity of the Title I Evaluation and Reporting System are covered in two parts: an annotated bibliography of reports concerned with technical issues, and a discussion of threats to validity--from the reporting system in general and from each model in particular. Threats common to all three evaluation models are reported:…

Longitudinal data on the auditory forward and backward digit span (FDS and BDS) subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) were obtained at five age levels (between 6 and 13), in samples of white and black children. Factor analysis and analysis of variance of the data were conducted to test 5 hypotheses, related to Jensen's…