Discusses the problems associated with "grading on a curve," the approach often used for standard setting on language proficiency tests. Proposes four main steps presented in the setting of a non-arbitrary cut-score. These steps not only establish a proficiency standard checked by external criteria, but also check to see that the test covers the…

The author argues that scoring, reporting, and deriving final grades can be considerably assisted by using a computer. He also contends that the savings in time and the computer database formed will allow instructors to determine test quality and reflect on the quality of instruction. (BW)

For 224 freshmen students, the degree of relationship was sought between two criterion measures (grade point average (GPA) and units satisfactorily completed) and four cognitive and eleven affective variables. High school GPA was the most valid predictor; affective variables explained only 40-60 percent as much variance as high school GPA.…

"Listening Recall" is a listening comprehension test which discriminates over a wide range of proficiency. Unlike traditional tests, requiring multiple choice responses, it is a listening cloze procedure; a narrative passage accompanied by a written version with deletions. Particularly suited to low proficiency learners, test has high…

The Parent as a Teacher Inventory, a measure of parents' feelings and beliefs regarding interaction with their young children, was administered to 615 parents of preschool children. The failure to validate the subsets illustrates the complexity of parenting behavior and the difficulties with content vs. construct validity. (Author/PN)

Applies the economic model of utility maximization to two areas of faculty performance evaluation: (1) relationship between teaching effectiveness and research productivity and (2) validity of student evaluations of teachers. (Author/JW)

Provides a bibliography of published research papers that either describe the history of the TOEFL, offer a critical review of the test, or interpret TOEFL research findings. Some topics include: the correlation of TOEFL with other standardized tests of English language proficiency, TOEFL's role as a predictor of academic performance, the…

The Test of Emotional Styles measures three broad dimensions of emotionality: responsiveness, expressiveness, and orientation. This study examined the relationships between the forced-choice Test of Emotional Styles dimensions and measures of related constructs. The patterns of correlations generally support the construct validity of the test.…

The author asserts that important changes in predictability of grades from test scores and high school records do occur during the undergraduate years. Mauger and Kolmodin's finding (see EJ 133 651) that this is not the case is the result of a crucial difference in methodology. (MV)

Humphrey's (1968) methodology, disregards the limitations it puts on interpretations of his results (see EJ 133 651). It is not legitimate to make categorical statements about all undergraduates on the basis of highly motivated graduating seniors. Moreover, when all entering students are sampled there is greater grade variance and a lower mean…

Reviews the test titled Psychological Testing of Minorities and notes that this book brings to the forum by which education may be made accessible to the underprivileged people of society without penalizing them for not belonging to the middle class mainstream culture. (Author/AM)

Defends the use of multiple-choice language tests against Pickering's criticism in a previous issue of this journal. (CHK)

The validity of a learning potential assessment procedure with institutionalized moderately and severely retarded adolescents and adults was examined with 38 Ss. (Author)

While the significance of validation of data collection instruments in speech act research has been recognized and has attracted considerable interest, most validation studies employed a between-subjects design. In so doing, it is possible that the differences were caused by the group effects rather than different data collection techniques. This…

Several methods for estimating item response theory scores for multiple subtests were compared. These methods included two multidimensional item response theory models: a bi-factor model where each subtest was a composite score based on the primary trait measured by the set of tests and a secondary trait measured by the individual subtest, and a…