Racial factors in personnel selection procedures and the performance of racial and socio-economic groups on a testing instrument widely used in personnel selection and in public schools are discussed. The study questions whether individual test items are relatively easier for one racial group than for another, and whether there is a relationship…

This report forms the background for some current efforts to develop computer-based scoring systems for One-Word Sentence Completion data. A general discussion of response grouping problems and a three-way frequency table for data reduction are included. In addition, six "structural" response variables are defined. The report concludes with an…

The Pennsylvania Assessment of Creative Tendency (PACT) is an experimental Likert Style Attitude Inventory designed to measure the creative tendency of elementary school children. PACT has been constructed over a period of four years, and has been subjected to item and factor analyses. The reading level has been set at Grade 5.0 or lower. To…

Estimates for the variance of empirically determined scoring weights are given. It is shown that test item writers should write distractors that discriminate on the criterion variable when this type of scoring is used. (Author)

Factor analysis was used to summarize the interrelationships between a large and varied collection of measures. Data for 500 third grade students assigned to either an experimental or a comparison condition were obtained. The data covered scores for the first 28 items of the Student Affective Behavior Checklist, (2) 9 nonmathematics subtests of…

Information is reported on the intellectual maturity of children 6 through 11 years of age in the United States as estimated from the 1963 Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test data obtained in the Health Examination Survey of 1963-1965. Consideration is limited in this first report of a series of reports on these test findings to age and sex…

Test development efforts for constructing 12 items to measure achievement of each of 30 selected language arts concepts are described. Item and total score statistics for data collected on 186 boys and 259 girls who had just begun the sixth grade are presented and discussed. (Author)

Discusses the complicating effects of ambivalence on the validity of science attitude measurement scales. Cites studies indicating that the positive and negative effects about a particular psychological object are not necessarily bipolar. Suggests the use of factor analysis to check dimensionality in instruments. (TW)

The Japanese high school entrance examinations were examined in detail for social studies, mathematics, and science test items. Most items measured knowledge and comprehension rather than synthesis, analysis, or scientific thinking. Implications for middle school instruction were discussed. (GDC)

Nine indices of response pattern appropriateness were compared, based on item response theory, with respect to their relation to the total test score and their effectiveness in detecting unusual response patterns. The ability to differentiate between three groups was compared: cooperative examinees, uncooperative examinees, and randomly generated…

A shortened Study Attitudes and Methods Survey (SAMS) was administered to 181 community college students. Four original factors remained in the new version: academic interest--love of learning; study anxiety; manipulation; and alienation toward authority. Academic drive--conformity and study methods were dropped, while facilitative study behaviors…

Reading ability of fourth- and eighth-grade Hungarians was assessed as part of the national CTD-80 (Curriculum Theory Department) survey. The texts used in the reading tests are analyzed, as are the reading tasks involved. Resulting achievement test results are presented and described in terms of the text characteristics. (GDC)

The development of an assessment tool to measure the quality of instruction is necessary to provide an informative accountability system in education. Such a tool should be capable of characterizing the quality of teaching and learning that occurs in actual classrooms, schools, or districts. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development…

It has been reported that the cultural-historical experiences of ethnic group members can play a role in the literacy beliefs of those members. Socioeconomic conditions can also influence the belief system of the groups' constituents. This study investigated parents' and children's beliefs pertaining to early literacy acquisition as related to the…

An experiment investigated the extent to which the results of out-of-level testing may be biased because the child given an out of level test may have had a significantly different curriculum than the children given in-level tests. Item analysis data suggested this was unlikely. (CTM)