We describe the item modeling development and evaluation process as applied to a quantitative assessment with high-stakes outcomes. In addition to expediting the item-creation process, a model-based approach may reduce pretesting costs, if the difficulty and discrimination of model-generated items may be predicted to a predefined level of…

A discussion of the types and uses of stories in second language instruction argues that the inclination to narrate is an omnipresent human phenomenon, whether attributed to nature or to culture. The story is a means of self-expression and communication that describes different forms of narrative, both literary and nonliterary. The uses and…

Three experiments from the late 1970s concerning second language communication strategies are studied for evidence supporting their classification as either avoidance or achievement strategies. The experiments had as subjects native English-speaking children in a French immersion program, adult second language learners of English who were native…

A language camp program that began with a small group of 10- to 12-year-olds whose faculty parents wanted them to retain the German learned on sabbaticals abroad has developed into a program of annual week-long day and resident camps for 150 children, aged 9 to 14 years, learning German, French, Spanish, and Norwegian. The camp was originally…

In order to take advantage of advances in the field of mental measurement, the Armed Forces and the Department of Defense have supported the development of a computerized adaptive version of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) for use in military personnel selection and classification. This report describes the development and…

The manual for administration of the Chinese Proficiency Test contains an overview of the program, including: (1) its history, content, and format; (2) its primary focus and uses; (3) administration procedures, including registration, ordering the test, reporting scores, and billing; (4) the interpretation of test scores based on normative data…

The current growth in language study for business-related communication should be viewed as a two-fold opportunity: to extend the ideals of a liberal arts education to a broader base of students and at the same time allowing humanities students to gain skills useful in today's world. Just as the study of humanities can help create a more balanced…

This paper describes teacher usage of the microcomputer programs Test Analysis Package (TAP) and Student Problem Package (SPP) to analyze students' test item responses. These methods of organizing, analyzing, and reporting test results have proven useful to classroom teachers. The TAP consists of four integrated microcomputer programs to edit,…

A conference workshop for foreign language teachers on improving articulation between high schools and colleges, and the efforts resulting from the articulation in one district, are described by a participant from a community college. The session brought together 30 teachers committed to taking responsibility for colleague cooperation in their…

A comparison is presented of alternate-choice and true-false item forms used in an undergraduate natural science course. The alternate-choice item is a modified two-choice multiple-choice item in which the two responses are included within the question stem. This study (1) compared the difficulty level, discrimination level, reliability, and…

A study investigated the appropriate use of item types for testing reading at various levels of proficiency. It was specifically concerned with item types found in the standardized group-administered Defense Language Proficiency Tests. The item formats investigated were signs in the target language, identification of underlined information,…

In one high school French department, videotaping began to be used as part of a final examination. It was found that the students wanted to see their tapes and began to critique their own and others' performances. The next year, taping was done earlier in the school year so that the tapes could be used as performance models. Students were more at…

Test scores were compared for two types of objective achievement tests--multiple choice tests and the recently developed Multi-Digit Test (MDT) procedure. MDT is an approximation of the fill-in-the-blank technique. Students select their answers from long lists of alphabetized terms, with each answer corresponding to a number from 001 to 999. The…

The materials status report for Uigur, a Turkic language spoken in the Sinkiang-Uigur Autonomous Region in northwest China and in the Soviet Socialist Republics of Kazakh and Uzbek, is one of a series intended to provide the nonspecialist with a picture of the availability and quality of texts for teaching various languages to English speakers.…

An experiment was performed with computer-generated data to investigate some of the operational characteristics of tailored testing as they are related to various provisions of the computer program and item pool. With respect to the computer program, two characteristics were varied: the size of the step of increase or decrease in item difficulty…