To investigate the type of classroom testing format most appropriate for the Southwest Regional Laboratory (SWRL) Mod 2 Reading Program, three types of teacher-administered tests for the SWRL Second-Year Communication Skills Program were developed and tried out during the 1970-71 school year. The tests were administered by the classroom teacher as…

A student's choice of an answer to a test question is a coarse measure of his knowledge about the subject matter of the question. Much finer measurement might be achieved if the student were asked to estimate, for each possible answer, the probability that it is the correct one. Such a procedure could yield two classes of benefits: (a) students…

Data available from the Fall and Spring administration of the Stanford Achievement Test: Intermediate I: Form X and the Otis-Lennon Mental Ability Test for all Title I pupils in the State of New Hampshire plus a random sample for the entire state, made possible the item-by-item comparison of Fall and Spring performance on the same groups of…

Materials intended for driving knowledge test development for use by operational licensing and education agencies are presented. A pool of 1,313 multiple choice test items is included, consisting of sets of specially developed and tested items covering principles of safe driving, legal regulations, and traffic control device knowledge pertinent to…

This program aimed to promote intercultural exchange among disadvantaged students (ranging in age from six to fifteen years) from Negro, Spanish-American, Winnebago (American Indian), and Caucasian families. The study attempts to analyze the nature of choices made by the four groups involved and to determine whether a five-week summer session…

The purpose of this study was to develop a test that could be used both to diagnose student writing needs and to evaluate the effects of classroom teaching on the abilities of secondary school-junior college students to write expositorily. Data analysis was organized to indicate the extent to which a carefully designed objective test could validly…

This investigation describes (a) use of an item analysis technique applied to pretest results of Tests of Basic Experiences (Moss, 1971) with children 3-5 years old enrolled in a day care center; and (b) development of a new statistical technique for evaluating change ratings between pre- and posttests. A technique of obtaining mean change ratings…

A social studies achievement test made up of items rewritten in simplified language was compared with a test containing the same items in their original form by administering the two tests to the entire 8th grade class of a suburban junior high school near Baltimore. The results showed only slightly higher scores for students taking the simplified…

English is a Right Branching Direction (RBD) language in which relative clauses appear to the right of the head noun. In contrast, Chinese primarily relies on a Left Branching Direction (LBD) in which relative clauses premodify the head. Many studies have provided evidence that the differences in principal branching directions between the two…

This document presents descriptions of the content that has been identified as essential for all Kentucky students to know and will be included on the state assessment, the Kentucky Instructional Results Information System (KIRIS). The core content in this document is designed to be used with, not instead of, the expectations outlined in…

In 1996, the Department of Computer Science at Monash University (Australia) implemented a First Year Advanced Students' Project Scheme aimed at extending and stimulating its best first year students. The goal of the scheme was to give students the opportunity to work on a project that best suited their needs and captured their interests. One of…

A study investigated the effects of question type (multiple-choice, wh-questions, and cloze items) and question preview on assessment of English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) listening comprehension. Subjects were 90 freshmen at a Chinese university, randomly assigned to two groups. One was administered a question preview before listening to a…

Examines Israeli-Druze students' reading comprehension in Hebrew as a second language as related to their attitudes, cultural background, and interest in the material. Participants were administered questionnaires, Arab and Jewish cultural stories, and multiple-choice questions about each story. Results are discussed. (51 references) (Author/CK)

Recommends including essay questions on state economics examinations to prevent misclassification of students. Briefly reviews the literature arguing that certain groups of students do poorly on multiple choice tests. Discusses California's experience with adopting a combined-format type test. (MJP)

Gender differences in scholastic achievement as a function of measurement method were examined by comparing performance of 739 15-year-old boys and 758 15-year-old girls in Irish high schools on multiple-choice and free-response tests of mathematics, Irish, and English achievement. Method-based gender differences are discussed. (SLD)