A shortened version of Zaichkowsky's 20-item Personal Involvement Inventory was created, removing four items which might be difficult to understand for noncollege-educated populations. The 16-item modified version had acceptable internal consistency; test-retest reliability; and factorial and predictive validity. (Author/GDC)

A study of the content validity, concurrent validity, and predictive validity of a residency applicant ranking system found the system not to evaluate candidate criteria important to the faculty. The department adopted a new ranking system using a multimethod-multitrait matrix and based on a new set of desired traits. (MSE)

Reports two investigations of the self-efficacy beliefs of students with and without a physical disability. Used the Social Situations Questionnaire, Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scale, and the Self-Efficacy Questionnaire for Social Skills to validate the instruments developed for this investigation, the College Interaction Self-Efficacy…

Examines reasons for using essay tests in the direct assessment of writing ability. Reviews the steps in developing a large-scale testing program; e.g., creating a pool of topics or prompts; developing scoring procedures; training raters; field-testing the system; scoring writing samples; assessing reliability; and assessing validity. (DMM)

Reviews the criterion referenced test VICTA and concludes that it should be used with caution because of, among other things, the limited sample of questions per critical thinking skill, and the lack of a well integrated instructional program based on the test. (JC)

The adequacy of the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery, Part II: Tests of Achievement, for identifying and diagnosing learning disabled college students was examined using 68 subjects. Results indicated that ceiling effects were less pervasive than with regular college students. Cluster and subtest reliabilities proved adequate for use in…

Provides a sampling of recent program development ideas that show the varied nature of test wiseness instruction. Warns that teachers are unsophisticated test writers. (ARH)

Reviews the 25-year record of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), highlighting criticisms of test design and validity, sampling techniques, standards, and usefulness of results. Provides the newly organized NAEP with guidelines for selecting input variables and specifies nine variables to be studied. A sidebar describes NAEP's…

Compared the reliability and validity of three methods of measuring students' ability to articulate their career values. Cochran's method and idiosyncratic and standardized methods developed in response to problems with the Cochran method. Test-retest reliabilities for the three methods were .33, .66, and .19, respectively. The findings suggest…

A content analysis of the writings of 40 representative humanistic educators yielded 15 major operating values. The construct validity testing of two forms of the Orientation to Learning questionnaire, developed from these identified values and administered to 99 graduate students, is reported. (Author/LMO)

This article investigates positional response bias, testwiseness, and guessing strategy as components of variance in test responses on multiple-choice tests. University students responded to two content exams, a testwiseness measure, and a guessing strategy measure. The proportion of variance in test scores accounted for by positional response…

In 1979 and 1980, college freshmen (N=1766) completed the Noncognitive Questionnaire (NCQ). The validity of the NCQ in predicting graduation status after five and six years was assessed for Black and White students. Results indicated that the noncognitive dimensions measured by the NCQ were significantly related to graduation but the traditional…

Evaluates the utility of the Bannatyne recategorization of WISC-R subtest scores for diagnosing and prescribing instruction for reading/learning disabled children. Concludes that the use of such scores is not warranted. (FL)

Beery's Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration was individually administered to 193 school-age children. Four factors were obtained, indicating that the test does not measure a unitary dimension of perceptual-motor development, but rather four distinct levels or stages for the age range of children investigated. (Author/ABB)

Results of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC) and Bender-Gestalt Test were compared for a sample of learning disabled children that included 24 blacks and 24 whites; mean age 9 years. A significant correlation coefficient was found between the K-ABC Simultaneous Scale and the Bender-Gestalt Test error score. Implications of these…