The College-Level Academic Skills Test (CLAST) is part of Florida's system of educational accountability. Mandated by state law, the CLAST is an achievement test measuring students' college-level communication and mathematics skills identified by faculties of community colleges and state universities. Since August 1, 1984 students in public…

The College-Level Academic Skills Test (CLAST), mandated by state law, is part of Florida's system of educational accountability. The CLAST is an achievement test measuring students' college-level communication and mathematics skills as identified by faculties of community colleges and state universities. Since August 1, 1984 students in public…

This paper compares descriptive information based on analyses of the pilot and live administrations of the Alabama High School Graduation Examination (AHSGE). The AHSGE, a product of decisions made in 1977 and 1984 by the Alabama State Board of Education, is composed of subject tests in reading, mathematics, and language. The pass score for each…

The first section of the update lists responses received to date to a survey of teacher portfolio use. Fourteen preservice and inservice teacher education programs and 12 kindergarten through grade 12 school districts responded with brief descriptions of their portfolio use and with contacts and addresses for further information. The second…

Performance assessment, constructed-response, and authentic assessment are topics of current interest in educational testing and reform. This workbook presents the following articles on educational assessment to highlight work being done in this area: (1) "Aquarium Problem and Teacher Guidelines: New Standards Project" (University of…

The New York State Education Department is currently developing an innovative and comprehensive system for teacher certification assessment. One component is the Assessment of Teaching Skills-Performance (ATS-P), a video-based performance assessment for which teachers would prepare and submit a videotape of their instruction for evaluation by…

This packet contains a manual and a workbook for developing performance tests in vocational education. The manual gives an in-depth description of how to develop, score, and use performance tests. It includes the following sections: definitions of performance testing, steps in developing a performance test, selecting a performance development…

The rubrics are designed for productive use (speaking and writing) of English and Spanish in two-way bilingual immersion programs. The rubrics were developed by classroom teachers working in elementary school Spanish partial immersion programs, in consultation with a special education teacher, reading specialist, middle school partial immersion…

Several tests from the Educational Testing Service (ETS) have been used or are candidates for use by the Tennessee State Department of Education as initial licensure endorsement area tests. Memphis State University conducted a study in 1991 to recommend minimum qualifying scores for endorsement area applicants who would take the applicable tests.…

Evaluations and other major projects of the Austin (Texas) Independent School District (AISD) Office of Research and Evaluation for 1991-92 will focus on: (1) externally funded programs; (2) system-wide achievement testing; and (3) system-wide evaluation. Eight evaluations will assess the impact of programs and grants funded by federal or state…

In this paper, performance assessments are cast within a sampling framework. A performance assessment score is viewed as a sample of student performance drawn from a complex universe defined by a combination of all possible tasks, occasions, raters, and measurement methods. Using generalizability theory, the authors present evidence bearing on the…

This research examined the results from direct and indirect writing assessments to determine the most effective method of discrimination. The New Jersey State Department of Education developed a test for ninth-grade students which was designed to measure the ability to apply writing mechanics to written text and to communicate effectively in…

A strategy that has been initiated to respond to assertions that out-of-date norms distort standardized achievement test results involves annually updating the norms for achievement tests to avoid the production of inflated scores through aging norms. The effect of the application of normative trend data to the obtained test results in an urban…

Details of the design and data analysis associated with the 1988 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are presented. The 1988 NAEP surveyed American students' knowledge of reading, writing, civics, U.S. history, and geography. Small-scale studies were conducted for mathematics and science. Populations included public school students…

The provincial results of the English 33 Achievement Test administered June 8, 1982, as part of the Student Achievement Testing Program of Alberta Education are presented in this report. Following a list of the requirements of Part A (written expression), the first section describes the categories used to assess total expression and the scoring…