Louisiana's elementary school French second language program is described. An introductory section gives background information about program history. The second contains a statement concerning the foreign language crisis in American education, written to be used as a public awareness presentation. Section 3 outlines the state's overall program…

This document is one of a series of student workbooks developed for workplace skill development courses or workshops by Mercer County Community College (New Jersey) and its partners. Designed to help employees who must take certification examinations for job retention and promotion, this test-taking tips course aims to help employees to use…

This guide contains descriptive and evaluative information on 47 major commercially-available English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) tests in current use around the world. For each test, the following information is provided: complete title; acronym; publication date; targeted audience; intended purpose; scoring method; administration type (group or…

The impact of cohort changes with regard to ethnic group, gender, class rank, and first language learned on yearly average Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and Test of Standard Written English (TSWE) scores was studied. All examinee records, including student test scores and student responses to the Student Descriptive Questionnaire, in the College…

Reliability and validity of multiple-choice examinations as a function of the number of options per item and of student ability were computed for 435 junior class parochial high school students in the tri-county area of Portland (Oregon). The verbal section of the Washington Pre-College Test Battery was used. The least discriminating options were…

The comparability of Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) Verbal and Mathematical scores was investigated for one nonhandicapped and nine handicapped populations. The handicapped populations included hearing impaired, visually impaired, learning disabled, and physically disabled students. Special methods of test administration included Braille and large…

A study examined the relationship of time, language teachers' language use, and the qualities of interaction in the language classroom. An introductory section discusses the interest in these issues and the use and development of polychronometric techniques for behavior analysis. Three studies using these techniques to analyze language teacher…

An alternative assessment instrument developed to assess oral language skills of students in Spanish immersion programs in the United States is described. Originally developed by the Center for Applied Linguistic to evaluate 6-year-old immersion students' speaking and listening skills in a school in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the Student Oral…

This study evaluated whether the addition of a writing section to the SAT Reasoning Test™ (referred to as the SAT® in this study) would impact test-taker performance because of fatigue caused by increased test length. The study also investigated test-takers' subjective feelings of fatigue. Ninety-seven test-takers were randomly assigned to three…

Performance of high-scoring males and females on the mathematics section of three forms of the College Board's Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT-M) was examined to determine how item content, solution strategy, and speededness differentially affect performance. The mathematical and verbal sections of the SAT were also compared for similarities in the…

A substantially revised Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) was introduced in spring 1991. The new examination is designed to assess critical thinking skills, basic concepts and problem solving facility in science, and writing skills. This paper reports preliminary findings on the factor structure of the revised MCAT, which consists of four…

The relationship of differential item functioning (DIF) to item difficulty on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) was examined, based on data from nine recent administrations of the test from June 1986 through December 1987. This pool of information includes item statistics on 765 verbal and 540 mathematical items computed for subgroups of White,…

An examination of the principles and techniques of oral testing in British university-level final examinations in modern languages discusses: (1) the shortcomings of present oral testing procedures; (2) the theoretical controversy surrounding the design and value of oral proficiency tests, arising from research in English as a second language…

A review of the significant research on gender differences in test performance is provided, including studies documenting these differences and theories forwarded for the factors related to differential test performance. Research covered addresses undergraduate admissions tests, graduate and professional school admission tests, validity studies,…

In 1980, a study was conducted to evaluate the cognitive development of community college graduates. Data were drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. The control variables used in the analysis were three socioeconomic variables and scores on two standardized tests of verbal and mathematical achievement. The…