In response to a prevailing demand for better quality education in public schools in Pennsylvania, procedures were developed to measure the adequacy and the efficiency of the educational programs in public schools. The objectives currently assessed are in the following areas: communication skills (reading and writing), mathematics, self-esteem,…

Statewide competency testing as a high school graduation requirement represents a threat to those who encourage broad notions of reading and writing, even when a number of testing innovations in reading and writing mean a step forward in education. In Alberta, Canada, the English exam comes in a non-academic and an academic version, and…

Papers include: "ESP Tests: The Problem of Student Background Discipline (J. C. Alderson, A. H. Urquhart); "The Lexical Richness of L2 Written Productions and the Validity of Vocabulary Tests" (P. J. L. Arnaud); "The Construction of a Modular Thematic Task Bound English Language Achievement Test Battery for Kuwait" (M. I. Baghdady); "The Fill-In…

Trends in teacher competency testing, test bias against minority group teachers, and ways to encourage qualified personnel to join the teaching profession are discussed. Currently, 21 states require students to pass a test to enter a teacher education program, and 31 require teacher candidates to pass a certification test. Admission tests include…

Adult educators in the state of New Jersey have expressed concern about the adequacy of the 1978 General Educational Development (GED) test. Based on these concerns research was conducted in the use and applicability of the current GED test. The project investigated whether the existing GED test was meeting the needs of the large majority of GED…

This collection of articles on vocational guidance and counseling is one of the NATCON series produced by the Canadian Employment and Immigration Commission to improve the methodology of vocational guidance and employment counseling. Ten articles are included in the book. They cover the following subjects: a processing of counseling psychology for…

Thirty-two papers on performance indicators are presented based on the conference themes of performance of the higher education system at the national level, institutional evaluation, and assessment of staff and students. Papers and authors include the following: "Higher Education Systems at National Level" (A. Thompson); "The CNAA…

Universities training teachers have a responsibility to select the best applicants for pre-service teacher training. This study examines the validity of the Human Relations Incident (HRI), an instrument designed to predict the effectiveness of pre-service applicants. High and low scoring subjects were selected based on their HRI scores. Their…

Three approaches to the construction of achievement tests are compared: construct, operational, and empirical. The construct approach is based upon classical test theory and measures an abstract representation of the instructional objectives. The operational approach specifies instructional intent through instructional objectives, facet design,…

The Micro-TOWER System of Vocational Evaluation was developed in response to the need for a revision of the TOWER (Testing, Orientation, and Work Evaluation in Rehabilitation) System. The Micro-TOWER system of work sample tests measures the major aptitudes required for most semi-skilled and unskilled occupations. It may be used as a screening…

A large amount of research has been done in the past few decades to pinpoint the effects of test anxiety on the performance of those taking tests. Much of that research is listed in this bibliography, which originated with a computer search of the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) data base, Psychological Abstracts, Comprehensive…

This paper focuses on the current developments in regard to the assessment of language proficiency in children who are from non-English speaking backgrounds. Instruments currently used to assess language proficiency for placement in English programs usually fail validity and reliability tests. These tests usually measure formal aspects of language…

This report presents the design, procedures, and findings of the advanced testing of 100 modules in a set of performance-based vocational teacher education curricular materials. (The modules are based on 384 secondary/postsecondary level performance elements, including program, instructional, and other elements.) In the first of five sections the…

These conference proceedings contain statements from those concerned with various aspects of research on job performance measures. Following introductory remarks, the formal presentations of work and ideas include "Air Training Command Interest in the Criterion Problem," by Donald E. Meyer, "The Criterion Problem: A Personnel…

Not intended to be a technical piece of work in the sense of psychometric innovation, this volume presents a synthesis and summary of over four hundred highly selected reference sources. The objective is to present a gestalt of the perspectives, pitfalls, fallacies, issues, consequences, and trends in the use of standardized norm-referenced tests…