The item bank (Rasch model) has serious limitations for the national assessment of subject performance: it requires agreement about the scope and organization of each school subject and about the difficulty level of each test item; and items tend to focus on factual knowledge, ignoring other desirable learning outcomes. (SJL)

Reports on and assesses the construct validity of new measures of strength of enduring desires for existence in the form of pay, relatedness with the group and with supervisors, and growth in one's job. (Author/IRT)

Problems in the validity and usefulness of the Law School Admission Test in selecting appropriate candidates for law school admission are detailed. The history of the test's development and controversy over its use are discussed. Available from Law Student Division, American Bar Association, 1155 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637; $1.00. (MSE)

Test validity, coaching, the college admissions process, and achievement tests are discussed by the director of the Iowa Testing Programs. Data published on the SAT are examined. It is suggested that systematic instruction in problem-solving skills may improve not only test performance but also skills the test is designed to assess. (Author/MLW)

Fourteen moral judgment intervention studies are reviewed and evaluated to address two questions: "Is it possible to stimulate moral judgment development in an educational setting?" and "Does the Defining Issues Test index such moral judgment changes?" These studies affirm the second question. Half of them produced significant…

Described the Focus on the Future (1978) project designed to help high school students understand the influences of sex stereotyping on their life-career choices. Students used the materials to examine their own stereotypes and engage in productive discussion. A majority responded to the stimulus materials with stereotyped stories. (Author)

The McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (MSCA) General Cognitive Index provides a good measure of cognitive ability of exceptional children. The verbal and motor scales also seem valid. Interpretation of remaining scales should be made cautiously as scales may not accurately measure abilities of exceptional children. (Author/JAC)

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) Comprehension, Arithmetic, and Object Assembly and McCarthy Quantitative and Memory Indices were most sensitive to learning disabled students' achievement. Conversely, the WISC-R Similarities and Arithmetic and the McCarthy Verbal Index were most sensitive to achievement of nonlearning…

The study involving 54 children (10 to 15 years old) was concerned with identification of conceptual functioning as an avenue of differentiating between auditory processing problems and primary ego development difficulties within the context of appropriate instructional/remediation strategies. (Author/SBH)

Students selected as emotionally handicapped reported themselves to be tense, frustrated, and driven. They had irrational worries, and were sensitively aware of being criticized. Selected students lacked superego strength and emotional stability. Clear differences between primary and intermediate teachers' perceptions of emotionally handicapping…

Describes a competency assessment system developed for use with preservice and inservice teachers and reports the reliability and validity of the instrument. Presents data from a tryout of the assessment system with a group of preservice science teachers. (CS)

The study investigated the structural corroboration of instructional evaluation information collected from one source (students) by three different methods: responses to objective questionnaire items, written comments to open-ended questions, and group interview results. The three types of information presented a similar general impression of…

For a sample of 152 children in grades 2 to 6, interest centered upon concurrent validity of measures of empathy and social sensitivity as conceptualized within the behavioral segment of Guilford's structure-of-intellect model and a criterion measure represented by a standardized test of academic performance. (Author/CTM)

The Attitude toward Arts Education Scale (ATAES) was developed to assess attitude change in elementary school teachers resulting from a K-6 arts education program. This paper describes the instrument's construction and its reliability and validity properties. A copy of the ATAES is appended. (Author/SJL)

Results showed no significant differences among educator groups in judged importance of competencies. Competencies dealing with needs of 10- to 13-year-olds and individualized learning experiences were judged more important for middle school and home economics teachers than for all teachers. (Author/BEF)