This evaluative and developmental study was undertaken between 1972-74 to determine the effectiveness of items used for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) in relationship to other item types used in assessing English proficiency, and to recommend possible changes in TOEFL content and format. TOEFL was developed to assess the English…

A project was conducted to expand a previously developed model for developing proficiency/equivalency tests to evaluate previously acquired knowledge and skill competencies in the areas of clinical microbiology and clinical hematology. Designed for a target group consisting of on-the-job trainees, military personnel, and medical laboratory…

This special issue of "Catalyst", entitled Testing Programs in Schools: What's New?, was published jointly by the Nebraska Council of School Administrators and the Nebraska Association for Supervision and Curriculum. The articles emphasize desirability of designing testing programs to meet the information needs of educators and the…

Regression lines for the prediction of Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT) scores by Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) and WISC Revised (WISC-R) intelligence quotients were compared across race, by the Potoff technique. Subjects were 36 black and 30 white children who were referred for psychological evaluation because of learning or…

A comparative study of item analysis was conducted on the basis of race to determine whether alternative test construction or processing might increase the proportion of black enlisted personnel among those passing various military technical knowledge examinations. The study used data from six specialists at four grade levels and investigated item…

An information processing approach was applied to the development and validation of a test battery intended for personnel selection, classification, and guidance; and design of training programs. The approach specifies that test should measure specific cognitive processes and basic abilities, rather than prior experience. Tests should be short,…

A methodology for evaluating faculty work performance was discussed, using data obtained from a typical liberal arts college faculty. Separate evaluations of teaching effectiveness and of overall contributions to the college for 45 full-time faculty (85% response rate) were collected from administrators, faculty colleagues, students, and from the…

The Standard English Repetition Test (SERT) is an instrument designed to measure the Standard English (SE) performance of young Hawaii Creole English (HCE)-speaking children. HCE is colloquially referred to as "pidgin English." Details of the test's construction are given; test-retest and alternate form reliability and validity studies…

This study was conducted for four reasons: (1) to identify research studies in the area of sex role behavior conducted between l970 and l977 in the fields of psychology, anthropology, sociology, and education; (2) to survey operational definitions of the term "sex role"; (3) to examine the techniques and instruments used to gather sex…

A majority of seventy-three studies dealing with the effect of desegregation on black achievement conclude that desegregation has a beneficial effect on black achievement scores. These findings are in agreement with various national surveys that have found black achievement higher in predominantly white schools. However, a number of desegregation…

The authors argue that personnel who select standardized achievement tests have been led to believe that the major achievement test batteries differ very little in terms of the topics they test; but that the content covered by these major tests is different, and that such differences have consequences for instructional content. To test this…

This paper presents the Discrepancy Evaluation Model (DEM) as an overall strategy or framework for both the improvement and assessment of effectiveness of simulation/games. While application of the evaluation model to simulation/games rather than educational programs requires modification of the model, its critical features remain. These include:…

The diagnosis of children as learning disabled (LD) has become an increasingly popular diagnostic rubric, but the operational definition of "learning disabled" remains a vague, ill-defined construct which is based upon diagnosis by exclusion of other obvious causes. Diagnostic test results and cultural and familial information taken from case…

A rationale is presented for the "control items" technique, the technique of using control (nonexperimental) test items to provide a baseline for estimating the effects indicated by scores on the experimental test items. For evaluating the effects of a curriculum, a test can be made of two types of items--ones that test explicit program objectives…

Techniques for assessing test validity and reliability are applied to an analysis of an unpublished test, in order to familiarize test users in local bilingual programs with the technical evidence that should be available for instruments of potential use in placing limited English-speaking students. The instrument studied, the Language Assignment…