Prediger confuses observations about the data with Holland's theoretical statement, performs some uninterpretable analyses, omits much relevant data, and provides an incomplete account of what psychometric authorities have said about raw scores in interest inventories. (Author)

Advantages and disadvantages of no-penalty and penalty marking systems are discussed. Ways in which examiners have attempted to correct for guessing by students are reviewed, along with the use of "don't know" options and confidence-weighting for attempting to assess the degree of certainty that candidates attach to their answers. (Author/LBH)

Some of the merits and pitfalls of multiple choice examinations are outlined and ways of increasing reliability and feedback information are summarized. Included are discussions of basic format, examples of poor design, examples of augmentation, and feedback from computerized grading. (LBH)

Trained raters analyzed the educational and psychometric quality of standardized mathematics tests for high school students in the United States. Results showed many tests to be weak in common types of validity and reliability. General mathematics tests had, as a rule, higher ratings than applied mathematics, algebra, or geometry tests. (Author/MN)

In testing minority students, one should be guided by three maxims: (1) "Know Thy Test"--what is being tested, how to administer the test, what reliance to place on results; (2) "Know Thy Student"--understand the population and its sociocultural milieu; (3) "Know Thyself"--personal attitudes and the programs and practices under one's control. (MJB)

This research espouses the term "uniqueness" to circumvent the connotative qualities of abnormality and deviance, i.e., to convey a positive striving for being different relative to other people. The theoretical underpinning of the uniqueness motivation construct and the development and validation of a scale measuring desire for…

Described in the interim report of the Children's Behavioral Classification Project (CBCP) is the CBCP instrument, a duplicated list of 274 behavioral items and three demographic items which provides a profile of the emotionally disordered child based on observations by the parent or parent-surrogate. (SBH)

Pilot study testing of the Organizational Health Inventory (OHI), developed to measure the health of schools along seven dimensions of interactions among teachers, students, and administrators, showed positive results supporting the stability of the factor structure, and reliability and validity of the subtests. (Author/CB)

This investigation examined the three-year stability of WISC-R IQs for a balanced sample of Anglo, Black, and Mexican-American handicapped children. No significant differences in mean IQs were found across the three ethnic groups, although WISC-R Verbal and Performance IQs varied significantly over the test-retest period. (Author/BS)

Investigated the alternate-forms and alpha reliabilities of the Teacher Stress Inventory (TSI) based on the responses of two groups of 138 teachers. Demonstrated high stability and equivalence for the stress factors across immediate, one-day, one-week, and one-week intervals. Between-forms correlations were larger for the immediate than for the…

Examines the reliability and validity of the scores of diverse informants from the Child's Report of Parental Behavior Inventory (CRPBI). Also considers the utility of aggregating scores of parental behavior derived from multiple observers. CRPBI items were adapted to obtain mother's, father's, sibling's, and subject's ratings of parental behavior…

Two criteria are discussed for determining cutting scores on a predictor variable for identifying cases of likely child abuse--utility maximizing and error minimizing. Utility maximizing is the preferable criterion, as it optimizes the balance between the costs of incorrect decisions and the benefits of correct decisions. (Author/JDD)

Discusses the problem of measuring the validity of interview ratings in the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPI), proposes frameworks to distinguish abilities from testing methods, and considers factors affecting test performance. Suggestions for research and development on the ACTFL OPI…

This special issue covers recent technical developments in the field of criterion-referenced testing. An introduction, six papers, and two commentaries dealing with test development, test score uses, and evaluation of scores review relevant literature, offer new models and/or results, and suggest directions for additional research. (SLD)