This paper considers the role of education in influencing the political, economic, and social status of blacks, focusing particularly on the issue of educational testing and the activities of the Educational Testing Service (ETS). The failure of the educational system to effect significant changes in the status of blacks relative to whites is…

Since grade-appropriate levels of standardized achievement tests must frequently be used in Elementary and Secondary Education Act Title I evaluations, there may be large discrepancies between test difficulty and the achievement level of those being tested, with resultant inaccuracies in the scores. Procedures based on the Rasch scaling model were…

An overview is presented of a performance-based assessment system, Teacher Performance Assessment Instruments (TPAI), developed by the Teacher Assessment Project at the University of Georgia to measure competencies of beginning teachers for initial professional certification. To clearly separate the preparation and certification functions within…

Although many education for parenthood (EP) programs have been developed and implemented, a formal systematic determination of the attitudes of the groups to be served has yet to be conducted. A 110-item Education for Parenthood Attitude Scale (EPAS) was developed to measure attitudes toward EP, and administered to a sample of high school (N=226)…

ALTHOUGH MOST EDUCATORS AGREE THAT EXAMINATIONS PERFORM AN IMPORTANT FUNCTION IN APPRAISING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT, SOME CLAIM THAT MULTIPLE CHOICE TESTS DEGENERATE INTO A GAME OF "BEAT THE MONKEY," I.E., ANSWERING MORE THAN 25 PERCENT OF THE ITEMS CORRECTLY, THE RATING EVEN A MONKEY COULD BE EXPECTED TO RECEIVE. SAMPLE STUDIES REVEAL THAT THE…

This monograph reports the development of a semantic differential designed to measure professional self perception in student teachers. Seven scales were identified by factor analysis of the responses of 396 student teachers to 56 adjectival pairs used to rate the concepts "Myself,""Myself as I would like to be,""Myself as…

A description of the perceptual/psychomotor ability requirements for performing the tasks of various Air Force career fields was sought. An analysis of the literature relating to taxonomies, measurement considerations and job analyses yielded a taxonomy containing thirteen perceptual/psychomotor classes along with techniques for collecting the…

These written domain referenced tests (DRTs) for the area of transportation/automotive mechanics test cognitive abilities or knowledge of theory. Introductory materials describe domain referenced testing and test development. Each multiple choice test includes a domain statement, describing the behavior and content of the domain, and a test item…

The function and structure of a data base system called RIBYT (Review It Before You Test) is described. RIBYT simultaneously controls and associates questions in question pools for many courses of instruction. The data base stores questions created by both faculty and students and is used for formal testing and student self-assessment. The…

Using informal, objectives-based, or linguistic methods, three elementary school teachers and three experienced item writers developed criterion-referenced pretests-posttests to accompany a prose passage. Item difficulites were tabulated on the responses of 364 elementary students. The informal-subjective method, used by many achievement test…

The increased attention to measuring career skills has resulted in more instrument development, more testing of students, and more test administrators. There are three key areas of concern. The first area is that of identifying purposes to be served by assessing career skills. Purposes include permitting descriptions of the current status of…

Sixty-one evaluation products developed or published by universities; federal, state, intermediate, and local educational agencies; commercial publishers; private research and development agencies, and others are described, to help potential users identify, select, and obtain useful materials. Potential users include teachers; administrators;…

The relationship between delinquency and school climate is defined as the aggregate-belief-value characteristics of the people who make up the school. This relationship was investigated to determine if an aggregate measure of student attitudes about school, as measured bu the Quality of School Life Scale (QSL), can be used as a measure of the…

Reported is a study to investigate the performance of students enrolled in a general education program in the natural sciences. Part of the purpose of the study was to investigate a locally-developed evaluation instrument, SMAT. The SMAT is designed to examine a student's concept of the scientific method. Data are reported relative to factors…

This document contains the third of five volumes reporting the activities and results of a career education evaluation project conducted to accomplish the following two objectives: (1) to improve the quality of evaluations by career education projects funded by the United States Office of Career Education (OCE) through the provision of technical…