This document contains four papers from a symposium on assessing the learning organization. "Measuring Organizational Learning: A Confirmatory Factor Analysis of an Organization Survey" (Jamie Callahan Fabian, Ralph O. Mueller, Dail L. Fields) compares two models for measuring four constructs inherent to Schwandt's model of…

Three descriptive statistics (difficulty, discrimination, and reliability) of multiple-choice (MC) test items were compared to those of a new (1980s) format of machine-scored questions. The new method, answer-bank multi-digit testing (MDT), uses alphabetized lists of up to 1,000 alternatives and approximates the completion style of assessment…

This report describes a methodology for increasing the validity and reliability of inferences made about the problem-solving ability of science students that is based on performance on different kinds of tests. The generalizable cognitive components of problem solving that might be targeted by assessment are described, and specifications are…

Instructions for the administration of the Opinions about Deaf People Scale are given. This scale measures the beliefs of hearing adults about the capabilities of deaf adults. The somewhat ambiguous title of the instrument is designed to avoid leading respondents to respond in socially desirable ways. The instrument is based on misconceptions…

The Student Descriptor Scale (SDS) was developed as a validation measure to determine whether students described and counted by states as "severely handicapped" were, indeed, students with severe disabilities. The SDS addresses nine characteristics: intellectual disability, health impairment, need for toileting assistance, upper torso motor…

This paper reports the results of using a three-layer backpropagation artificial neural network to predict item difficulty in a reading comprehension test. Two network structures were developed, one with and one without a sigmoid function in the output processing unit. The data set, which consisted of a table of coded test items and corresponding…

The relationships of science anxiety to measures of achievement, test anxiety, year of chemistry taken, and gender were investigated for high school students; the study also attemped to establish reliability data on the Czerniak Assessment of Science Anxiety (CASA) of L. Chiarelott and C. Czerniak (1987). Subjects were 101 students (45 males and…

Stability of the Early Screening Profiles (ESP), developed by P. Harrison, was examined with a sample of 23 non-handicapped preschool children (14 females and 9 males) ranging in age from 3 years 0 months to 6 years 0 months at the time of initial testing. The sample was drawn from a rural/suburban community in the midwest with a predominantly…

A tool was devised to measure the perceived reality of television, an important variable in understanding how television influences an individual's perception of social reality. This was accomplished by using a research plan that allowed university subjects to generate the measures used for tapping the "reality" of television content.…

The present paper represents a demonstration of how LISREL V can be used to investigate scale invariance (1) across time (its relationship to test-retest reliability), and (2) across groups. Five criteria were established to test scale invariance across time and four criteria were established to test scale invariance across groups. Using the…

An instrument for measuring telephone apprehension was developed to facilitate research into hypothesized relationships between communication apprehension and telephone apprehension. A set of 92 Likert-type items was adapted from previous communication apprehension scales and administered to 81 undergraduate students in a speech communication…

A pictorial self-concept inventory for Mexican-American children was developed and validated. A primary concern was the adequate selection of pictures that would be relevant to the child's cultural background and environment. Another concern was the development of subscales which would measure the areas of sense of control, social self, academic…

This text was written to help the reader acquire a base of knowledge about classical psychometrics and to integrate new ideas into that framework of knowledge. The material is organized into five units: (1) introduction to measurement theory; (2) reliability; (3) validity; (4) item analysis in test development; and (5) test scoring and…

In the past several years, numerous educational climate instruments and questionnaires have been developed. One such instrument is the Charles F. Kettering (CFK) School Climate Profile, a popular measure of school climate that is widely used to gather data for administrative planning and curriculum revision. The instrument is patterned on the…

The kinds of life events that may affect cognitive development were explored for 777 students, mostly freshmen, enrolled in introductory social science courses at Western Washington University Bellingham (Washington). Cognitive functioning was assessed using the Measure of Epistemological Reflection (MER) of M. B. Taylor (1983). Students also…