This paper presents data on a new measure of attitudes toward children with severe emotional disturbance (SED) and reports on the measure's use to examine teachers' attitudes toward children with SED. Elementary or high school teachers (n=103) in western North Carolina completed the Attitudes towards Children with Serious Emotional Disturbance…

This critique brings together psychometric theory, reading theory, and social critique to analyze reading assessment and to consider the assumptions that underlie reading assessment as practiced. The chapters are: (1) "What Counts as Evidence of Reading?"; (2) "Evidence, Validity, and Assessment"; (3) "Multiple-Choice Standardized Reading Tests in…

Confusion in the terminology used in criterion-referenced measurement specifications and development and standard setting and the attendant role of cut-off scores are shown to need practical clarification through psychometric research on test applications and consequences. (CM)

Three developments over the past 15 years--our understanding of cognition, new techniques in technical psychometrics, and the computer explosion--form the basis for a proposal for new intelligence tests. These developments are reviewed, and both leaps and steps in intellectual assessment are proposed. (Author/RD)

Reaction time and movement time were negatively and moderately-to-strongly correlated with Ravens matrices performance and with reading comprehension and performance on the California Test of Basic Skills for 20 ninth-grade girls. Weaker relationships were found for mathematics and English grades, although the direction was consistently negative.…

This paper assesses the reliabilities of the items and dimensions, determines the extent of agreement among raters, identifies the factor structure, and assesses the influence of sex and age of children on raters' perceptions on a short form of the Teacher Temperament Questionnaire. (Author/PN)

Though some unexpected sex differences were discovered, the two diagnostic categories were not found to be psychometrically distinct. Further, the results of a longitudinal analysis suggested that, while IQ scores remained relatively stable over time within a subset of the original sample, achievement scores definitely declined. (Author)

Discusses a publication on the technical adequacy of tests used in simulated decison making. Suggests the use of poor diagnostic instruments can incorrectly influence a multidisciplinary team making student placement decisions. Authors respond to Wright's criticism. (JAC)

Ability-achievement discrepancies were analyzed using the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery, WISC-R, and the Peabody Individual Achievement Test administered to a sample of low achievers. Reliabilities of difference scores were moderately high. Reliabilities of differences for devices normed on both the same and different populations…

Analyzes the ABIC using data on elementary children across racial and social lines. On item difficulty, scores are higher for middle-SES, older, first- or second-born children, and from families whose structures are more typical. ABIC-achievement correlations generally are too low to be of value. (Author)

Recent experience of test development in Ireland, which had no tradition of formal standardized testing, is described, in order to highlight a number of practical and psychometric problems. It is pointed out that some conventional procedures for developing norm-referenced attainment tests have limitations, especially in countries with centralized…

A statistical framework for investigating various regression approaches to linear composites is presented in this monograph. The consequences of variance approaches for psychometric theory are discussed. (A six-page bibliography is appended). (JKS)

Greek parents (N=320) were given the Child Abuse Potential (CAP) Inventory and results were compared with American scores. Internal consistency reliability was high for four scales (abuse, distress, rigidity, and inconsistency). The Greek and American versions had similar factorial structures. Comparison found that Greek scores were significantly…

Argues that tests have always been used as a means of political and social control. Maintains that test results are unreliable, especially at the extremes, that their predictive power is weak and that language testers need to be skeptical and need to insist on complete information on candidates' backgrounds for selection decision making. (10…

This study conducted item reduction analyses on two measures of job-related social behavior for adolescents and young adults with emotional/behavioral disorders (Scale of Job-Related Social Skill Knowledge and Scale of Job-Related Social Skill Performance). The shortened measures contained 40 and 94 items, respectively. Reliability was…