The 118 tests cited in this bibliography consist of items related to instructional objectives. Assessment of gains is made in terms of mastery of objectives rather than in comparison with group norms. Some of the entries are item banks geared to objectives from which the test administrator selects appropriate items for evaluating the test takers.…

This study investigated the relative freshman-year cognitive impacts of five two-year and six four-year colleges and universities drawn from all sections of the United States. The overall sample was 2,685 freshmen students participating in a national longitudinal study and of these the final sample contained 811 students, 280 attending five…

A divergent thinking (DT) test format, scored for flexible and original thinking, is presented. The DT test format, designed to assess teacher competencies and estimate the transfer of competencies to new situations, was administered to graduate students enrolled in a testing course. The DT format allowed students to list phrases and sentence…

Correlations between the California Critical Thinking Skills Test--College Level (CCTST) and student-related factors regarded as indicators of academic ability and success were studied in a series of four experiments investigating whether the CCTST measures improvement in critical thinking (CT) skills. During 1989-90, data were collected on 1,196…

This paper discusses higher-order cognitive skills, provides examples of appropriate test item content in various subject areas, and describes higher-level cognitive skills which might be tested by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Higher-order cognitive skills are said to be more difficult to measure than simpler skills;…

Research summarized here demonstrates how similarity thinking can be used in training programs to help ethnic minority children acquire basic skills. Current achievements are often attenuated by poor language skills, especially when English is not the first language of the child. Similarity thinking assesses the child's ability to learn without…

The usefulness of studying thought processes in the construct validation of ability tests was examined using a sample consisting of 343 Canadian senior high school students. Four levels of probing were used by the interviewer to examine the students' thinking processes while taking the Test on Appraising Observations: (1) think aloud; (2)…

The present study, using a sample of 1,491 grade 10 students from a mid-western province in Canada, examined the validity evidence on the Canadian Tests of Basic Skills. Factor analysis of the 34 micro-skills (content by skill/process classification of items) of the four tests indicated that the Reading Comprehension, Written Expression, and Using…

This report describes the design of a test of one aspect of critical thinking ability, the ability to correctly appraise observations. Intended for classroom use with senior high school students, the 50 item Test on Appraising Observations is based on a comprehensive set of principles modified from Robert Ennes' conception of good observation…

A study was carried out to test the hypothesis that a difference exists between the results of a paradigmatic/syntagmatic word association test given in an individual's native language and in his second language. The sample used in this study consists of 23 Iranian officers attending a course at Air University in Alabama. Their primary language is…

This reference resource provides a comprehensive listing of tests, keyed to behavioral and educational objectives of elementary school education. Each test, or when appropriate, a subtest of a test, was evaluated by educators and measurement specialists. Four main criteria were selected for evaluating the tests: measurement validity, examinee…

An attempt to train concrete operational fifth-grade students (N=32) and seventh-grade students (N=32) to perform at the formal operational level on tasks demanding the control of variables are reported. The training was conducted in four individual sessions of approximately 30 minutes each. The training sessions were designed to represent a…

This collection contains 17 objectives and related test items for bookkeeping, grades ten through twelve. The first ten objectives represent the bookkeeping cycle: journalizing, posting, preparing a trial balance, preparing a financial statement from the worksheet, making closing entries, balancing and ruling accounts, and preparing and…

A discussion of evaluating informal logic competence centers on the identification of currently available tests and on a description of test theory, to aid in test selection. The following concepts in test theory are discussed: norm-referenced and criterion-referenced tests, true scores, reliability, validity, test selection and evaluation, test…

Arima's Discrimination Learning Test (DLT) was reconfigured, made into a self-paced mode, and administered to potential recruits in order to determine if: (1) a previous study indicating a lack of difference in learning performance between white and nonwhites would hold up; and (2) the correlations between scores attained on the DLT and scores…