Forty-two pairs of experienced and novice teachers predicted the rank order of their pupils' scores on the reading and mathematics portions of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS). The pool of novice teachers were first semester students in the Arizona State University Professional Teacher Preparation Program (PTPP). The experienced teachers in…

This study used multiple methods to assess basic community needs and attributes of community atmosphere (cohesion, religious involvement, and recreational activities) in two psychometric studies. Part 1 revised self-report community assessment measures, developed multi-item scales for each construct, and tested reliabilities and factor structures…

Starting in the fall of 1992, students will be asked to use the U.S. Department of Defense's "Occu-Find" to find occupations that fit their Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) codes, which will be based on the ASVAB academic ability composite (a measure of student cognitive ability). The purpose of this report is to…

A report on the Language Assessment Battery (LAB) explains, in question-and-answer form, the causes and results of some changes made in the test norms. The LAB is a test of communicative language competence, written in English and Spanish versions and used for student placement in the New York City Public Schools. The report describes the test…

The base-year survey of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) took place in spring 1988. Data on a variety of topics were obtained by questionnaires and achievement tests administered to a national probability sample of 25,000 eighth-graders. This report presents results of an examination of the quality of responses of…

The content validation method was used to develop a scale for measuring attitudes toward and knowledge about the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) for college students. The developed instrument, the Attitudes toward AIDS Scale (ATAS) consisted of a knowledge scale and an attitudes scale, each with 25 items chosen by a pool of AIDS…

An alternative to multiple-choice (MC) testing is suggested as it pertains to the field of radiologic technology education. General principles for writing MC questions are given and contrasted with a new type of MC question, the alternate-choice (AC) question, in which the answer choices are embedded in the question in a short form that resembles…

In the fall of 1988, a stratified sample of courses at City, Mesa, and Miramar colleges in the San Diego Community College District (California) were surveyed as part of a skills assessment research project. For classes into which students were placed on the basis of assessment test scores (in English writing and reading, and mathematics), student…

To fulfill a mandate of the Tennessee State Legislature, the extent to which the Tennessee Career Ladder System (CLS) is valid for making inferences about the professional competence of teachers was investigated. Evidence of the extent to which the content of the evaluation procedures reflects sound theory, empirical findings, and best practices,…

To identify a set of predictor variables for student grades in a first-quarter English course, a study was undertaken of students' reading and language scores on the Career Planning Program (CPP) and the Multiple Assessment and Program Services (MAPS) placement tests. In addition, the relationship was examined between the first-quarter English…

England's National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) are statements of competence that are based on national standards for performance in employment. NVQs are organized into five levels of achievement and areas of competence as follows: introductory, trade, technical/craft and supervision, "incorporated" equivalent, and…

This study was conducted to examine reflective thinking in 12 preservice teachers as it relates to locus of control and creative thinking. Subjects completed the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (Verbal Form A) and The Locus of Control Scale for Teachers. Measures of the dependent variable, reflective thinking, were determined through analyses…

Language testing historians have tended to ignore a significant period in the evolution of language tests, the years 1883-1929. In the earliest years, testing focused on knowledge about, not of, the language and reflected the teaching of Latin and Greek more than that of living languages. Grammatical formalism and translation were emphasized, and…

Many studies of the reasons people select teaching as a career have used quantitative instruments featuring a checklist of reasons one might enter teaching to which subjects respond using a checklist or a continuously scaled Likert format. In this study, results of an effort to establish the construct validity of such an instrument are reported. A…

This study addresses the validation of an oral proficiency test by examining the language that is obtained from the items presented in the test. The study focused on the language elicited by a form of the Simulated Oral Proficiency Interview (SOPI), the Spanish version of the Texas Oral Proficiency Test (TOPT). The TOPT is used to measure the oral…