Concludes that the test represents a carefully designed, standardized, norm referenced instrument for children aged 6 to 14.(FL)

Can students' writing ability really be assessed by standardized, objective tests? This question is explored here along with a discussion of the alternatives and advice for principals to help their English and language arts teachers confront the issue. (Author/TE)

Concludes that the PDIL (the Spanish version of the Test of Early Language Development) should be used with caution. Since its reliability and validity were determined with the English language version, the method used to translate test items may have some ambiguities, and some illustrations on picture cards may not be culturally appropriate for…

The efficacy of student ratings is examined through existing research, and it is concluded that although the ratings are generally reliable and valid indicators of teaching effectiveness and are not strongly influenced by extraneous factors, additional independent evaluation means are needed. (MSE)

Sources of bias in students' ratings of college faculty raise questions about the use of these ratings in making personnel decisions that affect the teacher's professional career. Student ratings should be only one component of the evidence collected to evaluate the effectiveness of college faculty. (PP)

The responses of 205 regular classroom teaches to the Rucker-Gable Educational Programming Scale were factor analyzed. Results indicated that the instrument measures four dimensions, accounting for only 42 percent of the total variance. Estimates of internal consistency for the scores and subscores were also modest. (Author/BW)

Teacher-selected test level resulted in: (1) most Educable Mentally Retarded students tested responding above chance levels on all subtests of the Metropolitan Achievement Test, (2) reliability coefficients comparable to those of the standardization sample, and (3) moderate to high positive point-biserial correlations for all subtest-level…

In the spring and summer of 1995, the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the first cohort of eight projects in a new initiative, the Local Systemic Change through Teacher Enhancement (LSC) program. Eighteen additional projects were funded in 1996, 20 in 1997, 12 in 1998, 13 in 1999, 9 in 2000, 7 in 2001, and 1 in 2002 for a total of 88…

In times when human beings used to live in a natural environment, their needs were also provided for by natural resources. With the increase in population over time, human beings started to look for new resources willing to get "the most" and "the fastest". Just like the invention of steam, first, they increased the density of the resources and…

This paper charts a cognitive history of the concepts of quantity and quality from three inter-related and inter-dependent perspectives of mathematics, logic, and physics. In so doing, other notions associated with the evolution of these concepts are identified and explicated. It is argued that the concepts of quantity and quality, considered in…

This study examined the impact of rater agreement on decisions concerning the alignment between the Golden State Examination (GSE) in High School Mathematics and the University of California (UC) "Statement on Competencies in Mathematics." UC faculty and high school mathematics teachers (n = 20) rated the mathematics items of the GSE…

This document examines the concepts of validity, reliability, and appropriateness from a language testing perspective as they apply to the following four assessment issues raised by the National Reporting System (NRS): (1) What type of language assessment seems to be required by the NRS: proficiency or achievement?; (2) Knowing that the NRS…

The Delaware Student Testing Program (DSTP) is a mandated statewide assessment program that targets four core content areas. English language arts, including reading and writing, and mathematics are given to students in grades 3, 5, 8, and 10; science and social studies are given to students in grades 4, 6, 8, and 11. The DSTP reading and…

The main purpose of this study was to illustrate a polytomous IRT-based linking procedure that adjusts for rater variations. Test scores from two administrations of a statewide reading assessment were used. An anchor set of Year 1 students' constructed responses were rescored by Year 2 raters. To adjust for year-to-year rater variation in IRT…

The writer calls attention to the many traps associated with one of the most frequent uses of assessment: the technical difficulties of measuring changes in learning over time. Noting that psychometricians don't like "change" or "difference" scores in statistical analyses because they tend to have lower reliability than the original measures…