This study compares the validity of three cloze procedures (traditional, limited, and least-major-constituent limited) when reading comprehension is defined as cognitive change. Over 400 seventh and eighth graders from public schools in North Carolina and Arizona were randomly assigned to one of the three cloze formats for either fiction or…

Eighty three applicants for empployment in a hardware supply manufacturing company participated in a study of the effects of anxiety, praise and the awareness of time remaining on employment testing. Two control groups and three testing groups--praise, time, and praise and time--were administered the General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB), a…

Crites' Career Maturity Inventory (CMI) was administered to rural eighth grade Anglo and Mexican-American students. Test-retest reliability, internal consistency, and validity are reported by sex and ethnicity. Data analyses indicate that questions may be raised regarding Crites' postulated monotonic relationship of career maturity to grade and…

Longitudinal studies of test wiseness (TW) were conducted to determine: (1) the relationship between TW and grade level, (2) the relationship between TW and sex, and (3) the stability of TW. Aspects of TW observed included stem cue and specific determiner identification and usage and the elimination of similar and absurd options. Subjects were…

Research has recognized that anxiety may exert a debilitating effect on students' academic performance; however, many studies of test anxiety have been limited by their failure to consider sex differences. Two studies were conducted to analyze sex differences of the Test Anxiety Scale (TAS) and achievement correlates and to validate a factor…

A latent trait method is presented to investigate the possibility that Angoff or Nedelsky judges specify inconsistent probabilities in standard setting techniques for objectives-based instructional programs. It is suggested that judges frequently specify a low probability of success for an easy item but a large probability for a hard item. The…

Approximately 300 elementary and secondary school teachers from across the United States responded to a survey concerning their attitudes toward the role and the performance of reading specialists in their schools. The teachers completed a 30-item Likert-like attitude scale and provided demographic data. The results indicated that teachers in…

Confirmatory factor analysis is presented as providing appropriate techniques for the analysis and evaluation of questionnaires and tests if the content of the measure can be identified as consisting of groups of items, with each group measuring only a single trait. This approach is contrasted with latent trait theory which assumes (and does not…

Instructors who develop classroom examinations that require students to provide a numerical response to a mathematical problem are often very concerned about the appropriateness of the multiple-choice format. The present study augments previous research relevant to this concern by comparing the difficulty and reliability of multiple-choice and…

Academic self-concept has been viewed by numerous investigators as an important facet of general self-concept. The Academic Self-Concept Scale (ASCS) was developed as a measure of academic self-concept in college students. The initial item pool consisted of 59 items worded to conform to a four-pont Likert-type response format. On the basis of…

An analysis of measures used in assessment of innovation fidelity was studied. The purpose was to contribute to the development of valid and reliable methods of measuring critical elements of an innovation and identifying levels of implementation. Questionnaires were developed for high school introductory courses in English, calculus, and…

The Bilingual Reading Study employs several measures of oral language proficiency: (1) a standardized oral language proficiency test, the Language Assessment Scales (LAS); (2) teacher ratings on the Student Operational Language Assessment Scale (SOLA); (3) teacher ratings on the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL) Oral Language…

The purpose of the investigation was to obtain some relationships among (1) test lengths, (2) shape of domain-score distributions, (3) advancement scores, and (4) several criterion-referenced test score reliability and validity indices. The study was conducted using computer simulation methods. The values of variables under study were set to be…

The Arizona Course Instructor Evaluation Questionnaire (CIEQ) was designed to assist individual instructors in improving teaching methods and courses. Secondary uses include faculty evaluation, research, and course and instructor selection by students. Successive refinements of the original pool of 1,000 items by factor analysis and subjective…

An information processing approach was applied to the development and validation of a test battery intended for personnel selection, classification, and guidance; and design of training programs. The approach specifies that tests should measure specific cognitive processes and basic abilities, rather than prior experience. Tests should be short,…