A reading ability test is described in terms of its purpose, its outline, its reliability, and judgments about the relevance of its content. Copies of the two forms of the test and the answer key are appended. A review of some of the literature on literacy indicates the difficulty of reaching consensus in its definition or in the setting of…

A parallel Spanish edition was developed of released objectives and objective-referenced items used in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in the field of Career and Occupational Development (COD). The Spanish edition was designed to assess the identical skills, attitudes, concepts, and knowledge of Spanish-dominant students…

A project was conducted to determine whether a vocational student's version of the Affective Work Competencies Inventory could be prepared to measure the psychological constructs of values, habits, and attitudes. A revised inventory was developed and administered to 194 students in eight selected programs at Toledo vocational high schools (data…

A study was undertaken to develop valid and reliable test instruments for mildly mentally handicapped students enrolled in consumer and homemaking subject matter areas--child development/parenting, nutrition, and consumer education. Following a literature search and identification of subject matter concepts, a pool of four-option multiple-choice…

A model for increasing awareness of sex-bias and sex stereotyping in vocational education was developed. The model consisted of a five-hour workshop which included these elements: (1) an introductory slide presentation which provided an overview of sex stereotyping; (2) five group activities (The Exchange, A Closer Look, Taking Stock, What a…

The following papers are presented in the conference proceedings: (1) "Development and Current Use of the FSI Oral Interview Test," by H. Sollenberger; (2) "Interview Testing in Non-European Languages," by W. Lovelace; (3) "Measuring Second Language Speaking Ability in New Brunswick's Senior High Schools," by M.…

The Washington state Title I Migrant Program Evaluation project is a feasibility study designed to assess the suitability of existing normed criterion referenced tests to measuring mathematics achievement at grades four, five, and six. Objectives include judging the technical qualities and content of several normed criterion referenced tests;…

The feasibility of criterion referenced testing is held to be dependent on the tenability of two postulates: (1) that bias can be controlled in a principled manner from one test to the next; and (2) that one mental process measured by such tests may lawfully interact with another. Without the first postulate, criterion scores could not be…

Student assessment procedures used by the University of Mid-America/State University of Nebraska (UMA/SUN) for its first two televised courses, Introductory Psychology and Accounting I, are presented in this report. Included are descriptions of various experiments in producing test items, a report on the construction of tests from the items, and a…

A synthetic performance test is a job performance test that has been degraded to some degree in the range of tasks covered or in the fidelity of stimulus/response features. Since further development is needed before synthetic performance testing is valid and efficient, this research project focused on three objectives: to (1) identify problems…

To comply with Ohio state standards, guidelines are provided for local school districts to organize a competency program. Five steps are outlined: (1) planning the program, including budgeting, scheduling, inservice training, coordinating advisory and working committees, and ensuring public awareness; (2) establishing competencies, by developing…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has completed two assessments of mathematics, the first conducted in 1972-73 and the second during 1977-78. Each assessment surveyed the mathematics achievement of American 9-, 13-, and 17-year-olds, using a deeply stratified, multi-stage probability sample design. This report documents…

An experiment was performed with computer-generated data to investigate some of the operational characteristics of tailored testing as they are related to various provisions of the computer program and item pool. With respect to the computer program, two characteristics were varied: the size of the step of increase or decrease in item difficulty…

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a Jungian-oriented self-report inventory which classifies people into dichotomous categories along four scales: extraversion-introversion, sensation-intuition, thinking-feeling, and judgment-perception. Introduced in 1942, the scoring and items have changed after several items analyses. Form F contains 51 phrase…

A pilot study on the development and administration of a test using a spatial reasoning problem, the 15-puzzle, is described. The test utilizes on-line capabilities of a real-time computer to record an examinee's progress on each problem through a sequence of problem-solving "moves", and to collect additional on-line data that might be…