The issue of test-item selection in support of decision making in adaptive testing is considered. The number of items needed to make a decision is compared for two approaches: selecting items from an item pool that are most informative at the decision point or selecting items that are most informative at the examinee's ability level. The first…

An overview is provided of the "Authentic Assessment for Multiple Users" project funded by the National Science Foundation to determine whether portfolio assessment can be structured to permit meaningful aggregation for multiple hierarchical users. The research focus was in the context of science and mathematics instruction in grades…

It has been argued that qualitative research demands a special ethics code because of the special relationship between researcher and subject. Ethical aspects of teacher-thinking research were examined by asking 12 teacher-thinking researchers in Israel to participate in an interview on ethical issues of teacher thinking. Interview transcripts…

The design, administration, revision, and validation of the Southeast Asian Summer Studies Institute proficiency examinations are reported. The examinations were created as parallel language proficiency tests in each of five languages: Indonesian, Khmer, Tagalog, Thai, and Vietnamese. Four tests were developed in each language: multiple-choice…

This study was undertaken to develop and field test an instrument designed to measure attitudes of middle school mathematics teachers toward low achievers in mathematics. Three 15-item subscales designed to measure teacher beliefs, feelings, and intended behaviors toward low achievers in mathematics are contained in the Likert-type scale entitled:…

The hardware and software system used to create the National Opinion Research Center/Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (NORC/CRESST) item databases and test booklets for the 12th-grade science assessment are described. A general description of the capabilities of the system is given, with some specific information…

Confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the construct validity of a new instrument measuring perceptions toward classroom management: the Inventory of Classroom Management Style (ICMS). Classroom management was defined as a multifaceted process that includes three broad dimensions: (1) what teachers believe about students as persons; (2)…

A project was conducted to develop and implement a comprehensive assessment system in existing adult education programs. Weekly site visits were made to four programs as follows: a segment of a large adult program offering literacy, General Educational Development (GED), and specialized technical courses; a small community-based program with…

Two studies evaluated a technique for combining perceptions family members have of their families into measures of the family as a unit. Study 1 tested the reliability of an individually administered measure of family support and affiliation created to serve as a basis for aggregated family indices. Two existing family-assessment methods were…

This paper explores some of the issues involved in assessing national-curriculum standards at the local level. Some of the things that might foster the use of high-quality assessments include: (1) feasible and assessable state content standards; (2) a clear purpose for each assessment; (3) an emphasis on valid, fair, and reliable classroom…

The California Assessment Collaborative (CAC) was designed as a three-year effort to identify, validate, and disseminate alternatives to standardized testing throughout the state. This report highlights the results from the first year and comments on the work of 22 diverse pilot projects that serve as examples of site-based development of…

Whether the construct of adaptive behavior, which has been developed and operationalized in western countries, could be successfully operationalized in a non-western country, Indonesia, was studied. Focus was on delineating procedures for cross-cultural adaptation and operationalization of the construct; creating an operationalization of the…

The Adult Migrant Education Service (AMES) of Victoria, Australia provides courses in English as a Second Language to non-English speaking migrants. Reviews currently under way are attempting to determine the effectiveness of this program and to find ways that might be used to help teachers assess the development of the students and to diagnose…

When the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) was designed 20 years ago, comparisons among individual states or localities were not deemed desirable. Today, this lack of information to allow comparison is judged to be a serious weakness of the NAEP, and ways to allow comparisons are actively sought. The focus of this paper is to…

The Center for Educational Research and Evaluation of the University of North Carolina (Greensboro) has been contracted to propose standards, indicators of quality, data collection procedures, and instruments for the evaluation of Georgia public schools mandated by the state legislature. The development of these standards and indicators is…