This report shows that there are many ways to confirm the accuracy, reliability, and validity of student self-reports. Examples from higher education and from public opinion polls and general surveys demonstrate some of the common sources of measurement errors and errors of substance. Part 1 of the report summarizes a few highlights from the…

A project was conducted to develop and test three criterion-referenced achievement tests for use in Oklahoma's Dietetic Support Personnel training program. The training program is a competency-based course of instruction that is designed to prepare food service and production workers for employment in Oklahoma's health care industry. Initial…

As part of a one-year trial project, in fall 1981, Oakton College students who scored below 35 on the Educational Testing Service Test of Written Expression were not permitted to enroll in C101 (an introductory communications course) until they had successfully completed a developmental communications course or had retaken and passed the exam. To…

The two objectives of this study were to determine if the Holland vocational theory had predictive value for teacher performance, and to provide a clearer picture of who would be considered a quality social studies teacher. A Teacher Data Form and a Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) (Holland, 1977) were completed by 104 social studies teachers…

Prior research in a single clinical training setting has shown Cason and Cason's (1981) simplified model of their performance rating theory can improve rating reliability and validity through statistical control of rater stringency error. Here, the model was applied to clinical performance ratings of 14 cohorts (about 250 students and 200 raters)…

The proposed standard for judging proficiency test score reliability requires that the proportion of items passed for each objective assessed be a dependable estimate of the universe score for the domain strata established by the objective. Domain breadth is the focusing issue. Data from a field trial of the Tennessee Proficiency Test are analyzed…

The Reading Test for New York State Elementary Schools is designed to determine the most difficult prose text a student can read with comprehension. Test uses described include evaluating the student's current level of achievement; determining reading difficulty levels for instruction; measuring growth of comprehension; determining statewide…

The most common approach to self-management research has been to apply it to a specific target behavior, without attending to the generalizability of changes to other facets of one's life. A procedure for measuring self-management effectiveness under real world conditions was developed which emphasized the successful application of self-change…

This collection, including the proceedings of a colloquium at TESOL 1979, includes the following papers: (1) "Classification of Oral Proficiency Tests," by H. Madsen and R. Jones; (2) "A Theoretical Framework for Communicative Competence," by M. Canale and M. Swain; (3) "Beyond Faith and Face Validity: The Multitrait-Multimethod Matrix and the…

This text is designed to accompany workshop instruction in student assessment technique for the purpose of evaluating bilingual programs. It is addressed to those involved with bilingual programs generally, educators directly involved in planning and implementation, and research and evaluation specialists. The contextual variables that affect the…

The effects of aggregation on the reliability of measures of academic performance were explored in two studies. In the first study, 30 elementary-age children were tested four times on the same forms of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests and the Ginn 720 Reading Passage measures. Group stability coefficients, within-subject reliability…

A sample of slightly over 1500 students was drawn from even-numbered grades in public schools of the U.S. Virgin Islands, and was given the 1973 edition of the Stanford Achievement Test (in grades 2,4,6, & 8) and the Test of Academic Skills (grades 10 and 12) to assess student academic achievement in the basic skill areas of mathematics,…

An ethnographic study of language proficiency in the home and school languages of bilingual children was conducted. From a qualitative sociolinguistic perspective, language proficiency, the relation of linguistic performance to community language use and attitudes, and the correlation of the sociolinguistic findings on language repertoire with…

Each of the three studies in this report examines a different aspect of the basic question of what the four item types (analogies, antonyms, reading comprehension, and sentence completion) on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) verbal section are measuring and of whether a change in the relative emphasis on the various item types would enhance the…

Ethical issues involved in competency testing of teachers are raised by the following considerations: that (1) the initiative for the movement came from state legislatures and boards of education rather than from educators; (2) in some states, the testing of teachers is paralleled by a movement to assess the basic skills of public school students;…