Little is known about the food safety knowledge of young adults. In addition, few knowledge questionnaires and no comprehensive, criterion-referenced measure that assesses the full range of food safety knowledge could be identified. Without appropriate, valid, and reliable measures and baseline data, it is difficult to develop and implement…

This manual describes the Wisconsin Sensorimotor Pointing Assessment (WSPA) for individuals with severe communication deficits complicated by other cognitive or motor disabilities, and provides guidelines for its administration. The WSPA was designed to quantify four categories of sensory and motor abilities necessary for initiating and accurately…

Educational research among indigenous peoples has often been flawed. Many studies on achievement motivation, cognitive development, and learning styles have failed to establish that the behaviors and responses being measured were functionally, conceptually, or metrically equivalent to those from which norms for comparison were drawn, and that the…

The report of the National Academy of Education (NAE), "Setting Performance Standards for Student Achievement," provides an interpretation of NAE investigations into the procedures surrounding establishment of achievement levels for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The NAE report synthesizes the investigations of…

Construction of a work sample test, the Investigator Planning Exercise (IPE), for the job of detective in the Chicago (Illinois) Police Department is described. Simulated crime scenarios, a mock crime scene, and five checklists of necessary skills (i.e., ability to summarize and communicate facts, identify inconsistencies, and determine the next…

Using data from 135 sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders between 11 and 15 years old attending a middle school in a suburban Southwest Ohio school district, two hypothesized models of the factor structures for the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory were tested. One model represents the original Coopersmith factor structure, and the other model is…

A popular instrument purported to measure psychological dimensions of school climate--the Charles F. Kettering Ltd. School Climate Profile (CFK)--was analyzed psychometrically. Factor analysis was used to examine the construct validity of the CFK scale, Part A, General Climate Factors, which contains 8 subscales each with 5 items (a total of 40…

An attempt to develop a locus of control scale that would differentiate one's sense of control over events that are highly controllable from one's sense of control over events that are typically uncontrollable by the individual is described. It was hypothesized that the more remote events are from one's personal control (e.g., events in the lives…

This study investigated the construct validity of the revised Special Education-Mental Handicaps Georgia Teacher Certification Test (MH-TCT) using hierarchical confirmatory factor analysis and LISREL VI. The primary objective was to determine whether first-order and second-order factors correspond to item/objective/test relationships defined by…

This paper examines how various equating methods are affected by: (1) sampling error; (2) sample characteristics; and (3) characteristics of anchor test items. It reviews empirical studies that investigated the invariance of equating transformations, and it discusses empirical and simulation studies that focus on how the properties of anchor tests…

The methodological implications of using instructional information combined with the usual test item responses are discussed as they affect the linkage of achievement measurement and instruction. Models that expand those of standard Item Response Theory (IRT) are illustrated using achievement data from the United States sample of the Second…

This study examined the psychometric characteristics of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) administered under special conditions for nine handicapped groups. Four psychometric characteristics were studied: level of test performance, test reliability, speededness, and extent of unexpected differential item performance. Psychometric comparisons were…

Data from 10,000 17-year-old respondents to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1975-76 Special Mathematics Probe (Basic Mathematics Assessment) were analyzed. The primary purpose was to identify respondents' background characteristics associated with basic mathematics achievement. The achievement items and 241 background…

The objectives of the project are (1) to define the skills necessary for students to work effectively with others to achieve common goals, and (2) to develop an assessment instrument to measure student progress toward achieving these skills. The defined skill set will form a basis for common expectations related to team skills that will be shared…

The issue of what educational research has illuminated to date about the universally accepted practice of student teaching is discussed in this paper. A critical review is provided of selected literature on student teaching within the context of two contrasting paradigms for conducting educational research: psychometric and social-anthropological.…