Two methods of conducting a needs assessment for inservice teacher education programs were tested to determine: (1) the level of consistency of information between the two methods; and (2) the comparative validity of the two types of needs assessments. Eighty-eight teachers were divided into four groups. An informal assessment technique,…

UNIACT, a major component of the American College Testing (ACT) Assessment Program, is one of the first interest inventories to employ a new technique for ensuring sex fairness in the reporting of scores. UNIACT was constructed with the goal that distributions of career options suggested to males and females would be similar. It is intended to…

This paper reviews the literatuare on projective techniques of personality assessment and their use by school psychologists. Following a brief survey of the development of projective techniques, several of the most widely used techniques are briefly discussed, i.e., the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), the Childrens Apperception Test (CAT), the…

With the proliferation of suicide prevention centers in the United States, the task of rapidly and effectively assessing an individual caller's suicide potential has become an important research problem. However, the social science researcher is often confronted with an ethical problem when the results of his predictive equations can be used to…

This manual makes accessible several widely used instruments for measuring perceptions of psychosocial characteristics of classroom environment among school students and teachers. Background information, scoring procedures, validation data, and preferred and short forms of the Learning Environment Inventory, My Class Inventory, Classroom…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the utility of out-of-level testing (OLT) when it is applied to the assessment of special education students with mild learning handicaps. This evaluation of OLT involved testing hypotheses related to: (1) the adequacy of vertical scaling, (2) the reliability and (3) the validity of OLT scores. Fifty-eight…

The effect on children's test scores of different item formats used in standardized mathematics achievement tests was investigated. In a Utah school, 40 second grade students completed a mathematics computation test using eight different formats derived from five standardized achievement tests. Identical content, taken from the most frequently…

A project was conducted to establish the validity of a procedure and set of instruments to facilitate a more systematic approach for the continued staff development of inservice secondary and postsecondary vocational instructors in three states (Kentucky, Virginia, and Wisconsin) with different delivery systems. The population consisted of a…

The performance of 566 elementary students enrolled in grades 1-6 from Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Washington, on direct measures of reading, spelling, and written expression was analyzed to determine the rate of students who would be eligible for special education services by each of four discrepancy criteria. Measures were individually…

A modified rank order procedure was developed and tested to increase the sensitivity of student evaluation instruments. Students in 14 psychology classes at Weber State College were asked to think of all the courses they have taken at the college level and to determine which one was the best and which course or instructor was the worst. These…

In July of 1981, the Policy Council of the National Teacher Examinations (NTE), in conjunction with the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey, completed a series of national surveys to review proposed changes in the NTE Commons Examinations. The survey was designed to tap varying perspectives on the proposed test content and its…

Early identification of children at risk for various forms of school maladaptation is critical in rural schools, where services and resources are typically limited. The present study assesses the psychometric characteristics and utility of the AML, a teacher rating scale employed in a rural region. The 11-item teacher scale yields 4 scores:…

There are four reasons why comparative data is needed for student ratings of faculty performance: (1) the considerable inflation of student ratings; (2) the great variability in the way students rate different items; (3) because student rating systems must be flexible and comparable; and (4) because of factors (such as student motivation, class…

It was hypothesized in this document that lowered self-concept would be associated with children exhibiting problems such as delinquency or childhood depression. The differences in self-concept between 97 clinic and 485 nonclinic children were investigated by administration of the Piers-Harris Children's Self Concept Scale. The reported…

Standardized achievement tests and instructional accomplishment inventories involve different methodologies and cannot be equated by using conventional psychometric methods. Instructional accomplishment inventories are descriptive, and are designed to reflect the scope, sequence, and skills and emphasis in a particular instructional program.…