The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III) provides a comprehensive measure of intelligence, whereas the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (K-BIT) provides a quick measure of intelligence, requiring less than 30 minutes to administer. Since both tests are frequently used in clinical settings and in schools for initial…

Assessment systems to measure high educational standards emerged as the major theme at the 1996 conference of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST), "Moving Up to Complex Assessment." This feature article, providing a summation of the proceedings of the conference, reports that the…

This book explores the practice of testing. Two postulates are assumed: that student assessment should improve performance, rather than just monitoring it, and that testing should be only a small facet of assessment. The first chapter, "Introduction: Assessment and the Morality of Testing," considers what assessment is and how it differs from…

One focus of educational measurement has been the examination of the relationship between students' entering academic characteristics and their subsequent achievement outcomes. In the case of admissions tests, an important consideration is that test scores predict later achievement similarly for all groups of students who take the test. The…

Although Yalom's framework of "therapeutic factors" for facilitating outcomes in group work has been accepted by psychologists, no empirically based instrument assesses all of these factors in one measure. The Therapeutic Factors Inventory (TFI), which is described here, was created to fill this need. In designing this measure, the…

A case study investigated the writing strategies use by high ability seventh graders (n=4) responding to explanatory tasks from the Maryland Writing Test (MWT), a state-mandated writing assessment. Central questions were: (1) what are the writing strategies elicited by the MWT?; (2) what evidence is revealed of participants' self-monitoring…

Reading is an essential way of attaining information, particularly for students studying in a university. Using reading strategies is extremely important for non-native readers of English because it serves as an effective way to overcome language deficiency and obtain better reading achievement. A study determined the psychometric properties of a…

This study examined aspects of concurrent, predictive, and consequential validity evidence of the Pre-Professional Skills Test (PPST) scores as college of education admission criteria. American College Test (ACT) and PPST subtest scores of 372 graduates, and PPST scores, undergraduate grade-point averages, and student teaching ratings of 1,062…

The Coping with Disability Scales (CDS) (J. Perry and E. Bard, 1992) was developed to provide a social-emotional assessment specific to disabilities. This report provides a preliminary test of construct validity for a Resilience Profile from the Parent Rating Scale of the CDS through factor analysis, focusing on three subdomains: (1) Disability…

In this journal issue, articles examine various aspects of testing intelligence, creativity, and psychopathology. Featured articles include: (1) "Monglottosis: What's Wrong with the Idea of IQ Meritocracy and Its Racy Cousins?" (Johan W. Oller, Jr.), which shows empirically and theoretically that even nonverbal IQ tests mainly measure powers of…

This monograph reviews issues in research on the effects of using accommodations for students with disabilities who are included in educational assessments, particularly state and district assessments. Following an introductory overview, a section provides background on the need for good research on accommodations. The paper then defines commonly…

The relationship between household wealth and educational enrollment of children can be estimated without expenditure data. A method for doing this uses an index based on household asset ownership indicators. To estimate the relationship between household wealth in India and the probability that a child aged 6-14 would be enrolled in school, data…

Because districts in Nebraska are not measured on common instruments, comparisons are difficult. This study examined a district evaluation strategy that classifies districts into school performance ratings (SPR) based on a combination of three factors. Student performance and non-cognitive indicator data for three grade levels and two content…

The purpose of this study was to examine the construct validity of a classroom communication apprehension scale for a sample of 196 high school students in Japan. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used. The original English version of a classroom communication apprehension scale (M. Neer, 1987) consisted of 20 items representing 2…

This paper presents data on a new measure of attitudes toward children with severe emotional disturbance (SED) and reports on the measure's use to examine teachers' attitudes toward children with SED. Elementary or high school teachers (n=103) in western North Carolina completed the Attitudes towards Children with Serious Emotional Disturbance…