The Adaptive Behavior Scale, as developed, contains 10 domains of behavior reflecting independent functioning and social-emotional responsibility in Part One, and 14 domains of behavior appraising social-emotional adaptation in Part Two. The establishment of construct validity and standardization of the Scale for use with normal and handicapped…

The Student's Perception of Ability Scale (SPAS) was developed in response to a need for a reliable and valid instrument to measure academic, rather than general, self-concept in elementary school children. This scale was designed for use with children in Grades 3 to 6. Descriptive data on the SPAS were discussed in terms of its substantive,…

Papers presented at the Military Testing Association Conference focused on technical information and experience in the area of personnel management. Papers were contributed by representatives of American and foreign business, educational, and military communities. Topics for the 17 sections comprising the conference were: (1) Occupational surveys;…

The relationship among writing assessment strategies which may be applicable to competency based testing was examined in a study involving 128 high school students in six English classes in grades 11 and 12. Each student wrote two essays of at least 200 words on topics designed to test expository, or explanatory writing, and completed an objective…

The efficacy of second dentition, the number of erupted teeth, as an index in assessing school readiness was examined. A series of cognitive, achievement, and social-emotional instruments were administered to a group of 41 first- and 43 second-grade children. The tests used in this study were: Devereux Elementary School Behavior Rating Scale,…

The development, norming, and validation of the Preschool Behavior Questionnaire (PBQ) are described. The questionnaire was developed to be a screening instrument for use by mental health professionals for the early detection of children's behavior problems. The scale was standardized on a group of preschoolers aged three to six, including male…

Thirty-three student teachers were observed in elementary school classrooms to determine if they manifested 16 interactive behaviors identified as desirable by college of education faculty. Teaching assistants used the Georgia Assessment of Teaching Effectiveness (GATE), an instrument which requires the observers to objectively record, but not…

The study compared two adult education standards used to determine Louisiana student eligibility for taking the General Educational Development (GED) test. Of the initial 590 students, 516 remained as study participants. The traditional standard, Standard 1, required the student to earn 13.0 on the California Achievement Test (CAT) with no area…

Arguments in support of standardized testing are critically analyzed. Usual criticisms of such tests are summarized as relatively unimportant. However, two basic criticisms are offered: the competitive nature of scoring standardized tests and their lack of content validity. The test-makers contention that tests are neutral and simply need to be…

Each of the four Cultural Attitude Scales (CAS) contains fifteen graphic illustrations of the dress, sports, food and popular symbols for the Anglo American, Black American, Mexican American, and Puerto Rican cultures, respectively. Designed to measure ethnic identity or cross-cultural awareness for grades one to six, they do not require reading…

The Mann-Suiter Developmental Screening Tests were administered individually to 79 German and American first grade students in their native languages. The subtests, which examined minimum skills necessary for school success, were used to develop a profile of each child's strengths and weaknesses in visual, auditory, and language areas. Children…

The Melbourne Music Evaluation Kit (MEK) was designed to aid teachers of first-year secondary-school music classes to select appropriate curriculum materials related to the music backgrounds of class members, as indicated by scores on the kit. Tests included in the kit are criterion- referenced and are used as a diagnostic tool to measure…

The possibility that certain features of items on a reading comprehension test may lead to biased estimates of the reading achievement of particular subgroups of students was investigated. Item response data on the reading comprehension section of a frequently used achievement test were obtained from the Anchor Test Study data files. Eight…

This report is the Proceedings of the third conference of its type. Included are 23 of the 25 papers presented at the conference, discussion of these papers by invited discussants, and symposium papers by a group of leaders in adaptive testing and latent trait test theory research and applications. The papers are organized into the following…

The Rasch Model was used to define the word analysis skill variable and to develop, field test, and calibrate a corresponding test for grades 2-12: the Emory Word Analysis Skill Inventory (EWASI). Word analysis objectives focusing on content and hierarchical levels of difficulty were identified and field tested with 78 students, grades 2-12,…