This book provides guidance into the use of storytelling techniques as an approach to personality assessment and explains how to administer, score, and interpret such tests. The tests discussed include the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), the Roberts Apperception Test for Children, and the TEMAS (Tell-Me-a-Story). Each chapter contains callout…

This document deals with testing in communication arts for 11th graders in Missouri public schools. The document contains the following items from Session 1 in the Test Booklet: "Thomas Hart Benton: Champion of the American Scene" (Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan) (Items 5, 6, and 7); "Rhythms of the River" (Rebecca Christian)…

This document deals with testing in communication arts for third graders in Missouri public schools. A story from "Highlights for Children" ("The Night the Lights Went Out") was used as a passage for Session 1 of the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) test. The test provides five reading and writing activities from the story.…

This document deals with testing in communication arts for 11th graders in Missouri public schools. The document contains the following items from the Test Booklet: "Two Words" (Isabel Allende) (Session 1, Items 5, 6, and 7); "Gumshoes Turn to Internet for Spadework" (Nicole Gaouette) (Session 1, Item 5); a writing prompt; and…

Maximum likelihood and Bayesian estimates of proficiency, typically used in adaptive testing, use item weights that depend on test taker proficiency to estimate test taker proficiency. In this study, several methods were explored through computer simulation using fixed item weights, which depend mainly on the items difficulty. The simpler scores…

This paper explains the construction of a grading rubric that is designed to empower students with expectations of quality work. Teachers and students "negotiate" a mutually acceptable consensus. The contract process is based on the idea that when students feel they are valued participants in the assessment process, they become motivated to strive…

School psychologists were surveyed as to their perceptions and opinions of the fourth edition of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. Responses were received from 97 of the 200 psychologists surveyed, for a response rate of 48.5%. The survey indicated that the majority of school psychologists need additional training in administering, scoring,…

In this study, items were drawn from a full-length test of 30 items in order to construct shorter tests for the purpose of making accurate pass/fail classifications with regard to a specific criterion point on the latent ability metric. A three-item parameter Item Response Theory (IRT) framework was used. The criterion point on the latent ability…

This document consists of articles 23 through 26 published in the electronic journal "Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation" in 2001: (23) "Effects of Removing the Time Limit on First and Second Language Intelligence Test Performance" (Jennifer Mullane and Stuart J. McKelvie); (24) "Consequences of (Mis)use of the Texas Assessment of…

This document includes a booklet and a presentation guide. The booklet contains the anchor papers used to score the 2001 Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) in writing, grade 10. Anchor papers are concrete examples that illustrate the intent of the scoring guides. The papers in the booklet exemplify the full range of score points…

The purposes of this study were to investigate the role of benchmark writing samples in direct assessment of writing and to examine the consequences of differential benchmark selection with a common writing rubric. The influences of discourse and grade level were also examined within the context of differential benchmark selection. Raters scored…

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the selection of benchmark writing samples influences the assessment of students' writing quality. More than 300 grade 3 writing samples were scored in two separate rating sessions. Within each scoring session, raters used a different set of benchmark writing samples. Raw ratings were analyzed…

This paper presents the results from a paper-and-pencil instrument designed to elicit students' thinking about the rate of change in particular situations. A scoring rubric was designed to classify students' solution strategies to algebra problems. The purpose of the study was to validate the results in different ways. First, the results from this…

Whether the internal consistency reliability of a test changes as the quality of the scoring of the test changes was studied with data from reading and mathematics short-answer and extended-response assessments administered in grades 3 to 8 in the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools. There were about 9,000 students in each grade, with data…

Judgmental standard setting methods, such as the Angoff method (W. Angoff, 1971), use item performance estimates as the basis for determining the minimum passing score (MPS). Therefore the accuracy of these item performance estimates is crucial to the validity of the resulting MPS. Recent researchers (L. Shepard, 1994; J. Impara, 1997) have called…