The result of the application of Kelly's (1955) psychology of personal constructs to education is a personal construct model of teaching which reflects itself both in a series of five propositions (based on Kelly's postulates) and a measurement technique, the Tuckman Teacher Feedback Form (TTFF), which is appropriate for determining teacher…

Recent trends in college admissions are discussed in terms of their influence test validation procedures. In particular, the effects of new college admission practices are considered with respect to the problem of validating placement tests. Traditional test validation techniques are reviewed and compared to the needs specific to placement tests;…

A modified version of Super's Work Values Inventory (WVI) was administered to third and fifth grade students in a medium-size industrial community. The original WVI was administered to 9th and 11th grade students in the same community. Internal consistency coefficients, construct validity and ordering of work values are reported by grade and sex.…

In this paper, an attempt has been made to synthesize some of the current thinking in the area of criterion-referenced testing as well as to provide the beginning of an integration of theory and method for such testing. Since criterion-referenced testing is viewed from a decision-theoretic point of view, approaches to reliability and validity…

Two scales designed to measure cognitive preferences were constructed; this study was designed to validate these scales, and to investigate the relationship between instruction and cognitive preference. Items for both scales had elementary mathematics content. One scale was intended to measure deductive-inductive preference, the other…

This article presents views of proponents and opponents to standardized tests, isolates the major weakness of testing--questionable validity--and offers several recommendations for the betterment of test development and use. Some major misuses of tests include the following: (a) tests are at times administered with no clear purpose; (b) test…

The Miller Analogies Test, speeded and somewhat powerized, is a highly verbal test that calls for analogies using words drawn from various academic disciplines. It has been given since 1961 to those who requested it and to all those who proceeded through the Master's program at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point. Of 821 students who took…

The results of this study empirically demonstrate the importance of cross-validating an instrument intended for use in a future study. The instrument used was the Teachers' Practices Questionnaire (TPQ) which had been devised in 1963 to measure teachers' subjective role expectations. Three samples of undergraduate and graduate students who were,…

Presented is a critical inquiry about the product of the informal reading inventory (IRI) and about some of the elements used in the process of determining that product. Recent developments on this topic are briefly reviewed. Questions are raised concerning what is a suitable criterion level for word recognition. The original criterion of 95…

Four selected scales from the Learning Environment Inventory (LEI) were rewritten to measure the students' individual perceptions of their classroom environment, rather than their estimates of the opinions of the class as a whole. Both scales were then administered to 10 7th grade math classes and 4 10th grade social studies classes. The rewritten…

Many self-concept measures employ several different scales to which the subject responds in a set order at one sitting. This study examined the effects of different testing conditions on such scales. Bill's Index of Adjustment and Values was administered to 191 graduate students under two different sequences, and two time delay conditions. The…

A potentially valuable measure of overconfidence on probabilistic multiple-choice tests was evaluated. The measure of overconfidence was based on probabilistic responses to nonsense items embedded in a vocabulary test. The test was administered under both confidence response and conventional choice response directions to 208 undergraduate…

This study looked at Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) scores by race in relation to medical college status. It was found that promoted students differed significantly on all four MCAT subtests from those dismissed for academic difficulties and those repeating a year. For both black and white racial groups, the latter two status categories…

Recent efforts toward career education and the rise in occupationally oriented programs on the secondary and postsecondary level encourage a close examination of the nature of the relationship between people and their vocations. A 74 item device, the Vocational Commitment Index was developed to assess this relationship. Based upon a theoretically…

Test construction is not the strictly logical process that we might wish it to be. This is particularly true in a large on-going project such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Most of the really deep questions can only be answered by the exercise of well-informed human judgment. Criterion-referenced testing is still a term…