Educational researchers are not engaged in discovering mechanistic universal truths sought by positivists or tidy prescriptions about what works. Instead, they provide guidelines and interpretive material to liberate the teacher's intelligence so that the teacher can use whatever ability he or she can achieve. (SLD)

This paper offers a rationale for and a description of the creation of the Developmentally Delayed Children's Behaviour Checklist, which is completed by caregivers or teachers and uses a taxonometric model to describe the child's (ages 4-20) disturbed emotions and behaviors. Results of clinical validation studies are cited. (Author/JDD)

The Competence Enjoyment Scale (CES) was developed to measure parental feelings of competence and enjoyment as they interact with their infants. Mothers of 60 full-term healthy, preterm healthy, and preterm atypical infants were administered the CES to evaluate the instrument. Preliminary results support the reliability and validity of the scale.…

Convergent validity of expert-systems scores for 4 complex constructed-response mathematical formats was assessed for 249 examinees from the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) General Test in June 1989. The hypothesized five-factor model fit the data well, but an alternative with two dimensions (GRE-quantitative and constructed-response)…

The Preschool Development Inventory (PDI) obtains parents' assessments of their children's present development and possible problems. Of 220 children (ages 3 and 4), 11% obtained low General Development Scale scores, whereas 14% showed potential major obstacles to learning. Data concerning the PDI's sensitivity/specificity indicate that parents'…

Federal law requires that individuals with handicapping conditions be administered assessments in ways that accommodate their disabilities without penalizing them. Validation studies are needed to evaluate the meaning of scores resulting from nonstandard test administrations. The limited number of these studies to date is reviewed. (SLD)

A broad description is given of admissions procedures to Israeli universities. In Israel, a single unified test, the Psychometric Entrance Test, is used for admission to the various universities. Issues of validity and reliability and problems of ensuring fairness for non-Hebrew speakers are considered. (SLD)

A study at Tel Aviv University (Israel) demonstrated the utility of a faculty evaluation form on which the global "overall teaching performance" score can almost perfectly predict the mean of all teacher-attribute items for physics and chemistry faculty. However, for teaching assistants, a linear transformation is needed. (Author/MSE)

The seven chapters of this issue focus on technical qualities of performance assessments and report the findings of systematic empirical inquiries. They add to the body of research that shows that performance assessment, although time consuming and expensive, merits the serious attention of educators. (SLD)

The most fundamental technical quality issue raised by proposals for a national examination system is that of validity. Types of evidence needed to judge the validity of test use and the interpretation of results are discussed, and examination content, fairness, impact, generalizability, and comparability are explored. (SLD)

The relationship of multiple-choice and free-response items on the College Board's Advanced Placement Computer Science Examination was studied using confirmatory factor analysis. Results with 2 samples of 1,000 high school students suggested that the most parsimonious fit was achieved using a single factor. Implications for construct validity are…

This special issue includes the following: "Introduction"; "Interest Inventories: Which One, Why, and for Whom?"; "Recent Reports from the Committee to Screen Career Guidance Instruments"; "Assessment of Career Specialty Interests in Business and Medicine"; "Using Career Interest Inventories with…

Scientific and everyday knowledge domains are compared so as to reveal the distinctive differences between their goals and the cognitive processes used to attain them. The main goals, working goals, learning difficulties, knowledge structure, concept specification, knowledge organization, role of school science, program-solving instruction, formal…

This paper argues that cognitive referencing (which compares skills to cognitive level rather than to chronological age standards), used to determine children's eligibility for special language and motor services, is not consistent with current theoretical formulations. It also lacks empirical evidence for validity and results in exclusion of…

Studied the meaning that classroom teachers associate with grades, their value judgments, and the role of measurement instruction in their decisions for 40 teachers with and 44 without measurement instruction. Grades are related to student work, and teachers make value judgments when assigning grades. Measurement instruction makes little…