Research was conducted to assess interpretation, implications, and significance of the 2000 Advanced Placement Index (API) scores for California public schools. Multiple regression models were developed from the statistics on each type of school at the elementary, middle, and high school levels using traditional, double-session, year-round single,…

This collection of essays focuses on educational testing, showing how testing encroaches on teacher freedom and how narrow standards can actually reduce student achievement. The chapters are: (1) Testing Is Not Teaching; (2) The Freedom Factor; (3) Sharing Power with Intelligent Expectation; (4) Everyone Has a Story To Tell; (5) Lets Change the…

This paper compares the determination of optimal cutoff points for single and multiple tests in the field of personnel selection. Decisional skills of predictor tests composing the multiple test are assumed to be endogenous variables that depend on the cutting points to be set. The main result specifies the condition that determines the…

This study investigated the performance of Alabama College System (ACS) students on a Basic Skills Test (BST) and compared it with non-ACS students' scores to determine whether there were significant differences in achievement. The Alabama Basic Skills Test is required of all students seeking admission to teacher education programs at Alabama…

This report analyzes the validity issues that arise in the context of educational accountability systems. The report addresses validity from three interlocking perspectives. The first explores the theory of action underlying accountability provisions. It considers problems emerging from the distance between aspirations for accountability in…

The increasing use of high-stakes tests has focused attention on test preparation activities. The term test preparation can apply to a number of different practices that vary on the degree to which they are defensible. Although some test preparation is legitimate, there are concerns that certain test preparation activities may have a negative…

In today's educational setting, assessment results weigh heavily in determining what students should know and be able to do. In addition, because assessment scores are often tied to accountability systems that affect both teaching and learning, they influence what is taught in the classroom. The changes in the use of assessments underscore the…

The term "technology" often conjures up visions of scientific experiments and industrial processes, but technology is also a tool, something put together to satisfy a need, solve a problem, or attain a goal in social, economic, and educational institutions. In a broader sense, technology is any body of special knowledge, skills, and procedures,…

Analyzes the sources of the inequality caused by tracking, and discusses the constitutional tools available to correct this injustice. (Editor)

The contention of this paper is that the obtained difference in a study by DuCette and Wolk, which indicated that giving options in an essay examination produces poorer test performance, was an artifact of the scoring procedures. (Author/RK)

The present study is concerned primarily with demonstrating that laughter can be socially facilitated. It showed that children, presented aurally with laughter-provoking material, laugh more in the presence of a companion, whether or not the companion can hear the material. (Author/RK)

The authors report on two studies showing that the Slosson Intelligence Test yields higher scores than the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test for both nursery school and third-grade children, indicating that care should be taken when the SIT is used for intellectual screening. (Author)

Presents documentation suggesting sex bias can be found in educational testing and suggests that a more objective treatment of women in educational tests can be made by showing women in a wider variety of occupations and activities and by more equal representation of women in test content. (Author/DN)

Test anxious students were less likely to have effective study habits and more likely to delay academic tasks than those showing low debilitating anxiety. (Editor)

Author suggests that the examiner experiences the same psychological and physical malaise evoked by anxiety that is felt by the student which may have something to do with today's student-teacher tension. (IR)