This study attempted to determine the effectiveness of cloze procedures as norm-referenced instruments by comparing the differential responses of four groups of college students of English as a second language on two identical cloze passages. The responses were scored using both exact-answer and acceptable-word methods. The results indicate that…

The rationale and the methodology used in a study of high school graduates' viewpoints on science-technology-society (STS) topics are reviewed in this paper. The study employed the instrument, Views on Science-Technology-Society (VOSTS), which required students to write an argumentative paragraph responding to one of 46 statements about an STS…

Multidimensional item difficulty (MID) is proposed as a means of describing test items which measure more than one ability. With mathematical story problems, for instance, both mathematical and verbal skills are required to obtain a correct answer. The proposed measure of MID is based upon three general assumptions: (1) the probability of…

The problems existing during the reorganization of the Cleveland School District into a unitary administration are presented from the perspective of the head of the Research and Analysis Department. The district had been fighting a desegregation case for 9 years and operating in a receivership with a triple bureaucracy imposed upon it (the normal…

This paper reports on the development of three self-efficacy questionnaires for use in studying the interaction effect among students, teachers, and principals within an educational situation. The Student Self-Efficacy Instrument was designed from a widely used questionnaire administered to children, the Intellectual Achievement Responsibility…

This report contains two tests designed to assess the level of technological literacy for a 12th-grade student in the United States in the 1980s. The tests are based on a literature review and on nine criteria for technological literacy that were established using the Delphi technique. This report contains a 27-item test, a list of works examined…

During spring and fall 1985, a study was conducted at Cosumnes River College (CRC) to determine how assessment testing scores related to student persistence and performance. The student history files of a random sample of 498 students who had been tested by the CRC Assessment Center during spring and fall 1985 were examined, yielding the following…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of computer-aided instruction as compared with the traditional lecture method of cognitive learning of new curriculum materials. It was hypothesized that students instructed by the computer-aided instruction method would gain higher knowledge of the subject matter in terms of cognitive…

The Learning Strategies Questionnaire (LSQ) was developed to assess students' declarative knowledge of strategy utility. Goals were to develop a reliable survey that: (1) could be administered for fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-graders in a group setting; (2) would provide a profile of children's declarative knowledge of strategies for classroom…

The suspected sources of confounding in current meta-analytic studies of computer based instruction (CBI) are uncontrolled effects of instructional method and/or the John Henry Effect (i.e., compensatory rivalry). To determine which confounding is most plausible, a random 30% sample of the 128 studies which formed the original Kulik meta-analyses…

The Teacher Assessment and Development System (TADS) - Meritorious Teacher Program (MTP) FORM instrument is used in the Dade County Public Schools, Miami, Florida, to evaluate teachers. Its validity for decisions concerning merit pay for master teachers was examined in this study. Specifically, its ability to discriminate between high performing…

The needs-press model, as operationalized by the Stern Activities Index (AI) and the Organizational Climate Index (OCI), was examined for its usefulness in evaluating and measuring organizational climate in a school setting. According to the model, needs represents personality and press represents the environment. This research was designed to…

It is important for assessment programs in higher education to provoke good internal evaluation efforts, but it is also hard to turn an assessment program into a viable evaluation program. This is because there are so many different audiences for the information being gathered about programs. Assessment as discussed in higher education literature…

The current status of teacher testing practices and materials in the public schools of the District of Columbia was evaluated. This document reports the findings and recommendations of eight professionals who convened in Washington, D.C., on November 17-19, 1987. These consultants, via interviews with practitioners, found a high degree of…

Five papers on the assessment of writing ability presented at the Division D meeting are critiqued. It is suggested that it is not possible to conclude--as has Larson in his study of grades 4, 6, and 8--that National Assessment of Educational Progress results do not give evidence of growth in writing ability. Dovell and Buhr, examining approaches…