The five papers included in this collection illustrate the current concerns of those involved in the development and implementation of assessment procedures. A one year in-course assessment procedure conducted at Leicester University is described, including the advantages and disadvantages of the procedure. The problems of interpreting the results…

Evaluation plays an important role in the academic career of students and instructors. It is a concept that is repeated throughout the academic year and one that determines future roles and placement of students. This report is a summary of the findings of the first two years of a five-year research study of evaluation conducted at Edinburgh…

The existence of criterion-referenced (CR) measurement is questioned in this paper. Despite beliefs that differences exist between two alternative forms of measurement, CR and Norm Referenced (NR), an analysis of philosophical and psychological descriptions of measurement, as well as a growing number of empirical studies, reveal that the common…

The identification of talent, and the understanding of its development and origins in terms of biographical data were investigated. The three central objectives were: to construct separate empirical procedures for Anglos and Blacks to predict certain academic performance criteria; to construct an empirical scoring procedure that could predict…

Slides of great modern art works by Picasso, Mondrian, and Van Gogh were selected as stimulus materials for an art test administered to a heterogeneous group of 395 college students. The slides were endorsed for desirability, and the results were factor analyzed. Scales of items with similar levels of endorsement from different factor scales were…

The study presents the results of testing an original obersvation instrument designed to identify a power elite in multiple sessions of two eight-member adult discussion groups. Two questions guided the development of the study: (1) Can a power elite be identified in participation training groups? (2) Can an effective observation instrument with…

The initial stages of test development of the Vocational and Occupational Interest Choice Examination (VOICE), developed for Air Force recruiters, are described. Reviewed are a number of relevant occupational interest inventories from which a pool of 400 items was drawn corresponding to eight career fields: general accounting, administration,…

The objectives of the two-year project were to develop new occupational competency examinations for seven occupational areas--automotive mechanics, carpentry, chef, electrician (residential), industrial electronics, machine drafting, and machine trades--and subject the written examinations to a validation procedure. Vocational trade teachers were…

This bulletin attempts to explain the use and limitations of regularly the process of selecting educational areas which should receive additional interpret adequately their meaning to parents and students. A companion publication "Understanding Testing Purposes and Interpretations for Pupil Development," also prepared by HEW, was issued in 1960. A…

This study tests three aspects of the problem of validity of contrastive analysis as a means for predicting errors or problems for second language learners: the constancy of foreign-language errors, the objectivity of the methods and procedures of contrastive analysis, and the capacity of contrastive analysis to make accurate predictions. Japanese…

This introductory manual for the College Student Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSSQ) includes a description of the test, tentative norms, a summary of findings to date regarding psychometric characteristics of the instrument, and suggestions for possible uses. The manual is intended to supply sufficient material for the practical needs of most test…

Comprehensive Achievement Monitoring (CAM) is a systematic procedure of constructing and administering longitudinal, criterion-referenced tests. CAM has advantages over typical classroom testing of having well-organized tests, providing course evaluation through pretesting, posttesting, and retention measurement; producing data for continuous…

Seven foreign language tests for the secondary school level, published by Educational Testing Service, Princeton, N.J., are described and discussed. These tests are: (1) Foreign Language Achievement Tests--offered by the College Entrance Examination Board for high school students in French, German, Russian, and Spanish, with emphasis on the new…

Content and task dimensions of social studies items were studied using factor analytic techniques. These items were developed to measure concept attainment using a completely crossed design with 30 concepts and 12 tasks. Conventional factor analyses were performed, separately for boys and girls, for concept scores and for task scores. Three-mode…

A committee was formed in Great Britain to consider proposals made for examining sixth form pupils in the use of the English language for purposes of university matriculation and to consider what changes may be desirable in the examination of English at ordinary level. Conclusions and recommendations resulting from the formation of this committee…