The 1992 annual conference of the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) was dedicated to explaining "What Works in Performance Assessment?" This report provides a synopsis of discussions by over 300 policymakers, researchers, and teachers. CRESST Co-Director Eva Baker summed up the present state of…

Standard and experimental forms of the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundations Analytical Reasoning test were administered to 1,496 clients of the Foundation (persons seeking information about aptitude for educational and career decisions). The objectives were to develop a new form of the test and to better understand what makes some items more…

Results of an analysis of a newly developed spelling test and several related measures are reported. Information about the reliability of a newly developed spelling test; its distribution of scores; its relationship with the standard battery of aptitude tests of the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation; and its relationships with sex, age,…

A study examined difficulties encountered in producing multiple versions of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) exams administered during a 3-week period to students in the United Arab Emirates University Distance Learning Program for English. The challenges faced in production of the exams included: how to equalize and maintain test item and text…

In an effort to improve the management of the Georgia Department of Education innovation program, a concept paper process for selecting developmental projects was implemented in January of 1989. The first effort, in January of 1989, yielded 48 papers; the second effort, in November of 1990, yielded 56 papers. For the Novemeber effort, funding was…

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…

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 microcomputer has increased interest in performance testing, which samples what a person can do rather than what he or she knows. Conventional psychometric theory is based on knowledge tests, but in performance testing the unit of analysis is a trial, and it is unreasonable to assume that mean performance and interim correlations are…

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…

Students in social studies classrooms frequently find themselves in situations where the information they need to provide in order to have a correct, complete response is not clear. For example, teachers frequently use cue words in questions and directions such as "identify,""describe,""analyze," and…

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…

The Carleton Academic English Language (CAEL) Assessment is a criterion-referenced test developed at Carleton University (Canada). It combines logic of performance testing with ethics of gradual admission, i.e., that limited-English-speaking students should be allowed to begin limited academic study in English, based on language proficiency and…

The National Household Education Survey (NHES) was conducted for the first time in 1991 as a way to collect data on the early childhood education experiences of young children and participation in adult education. Because the NHES methodology is relatively new, field tests were necessary. A large field test of approximately 15,000 households was…

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…

In preparation for a study of essay questions and other forms of open-ended exercises in the California Golden State Examination for biology, the functioning of open-ended biology items in another examination was explored. The Golden State Examination program offers honors credit to students who wish to qualify for admission to programs in…