Explains the development of Florida's certification examination for prospective drama teachers. Describes its process design and the participation of drama educators from around the state as keys to the test's successful development. (SR)

Describes development of 472 true-false scientific literacy test items with high content and item validity that test 240 key ideas in, and attitudes toward, science. Items are based on selected chapters of the 1989 American Association for the Advancement of Science report, entitled Science for All Americans. Appendix contains sample items.…

Negative coefficients of reliability, sometimes returned by the standard formula for estimation of the internal-consistency reliability, are neither theoretically nor numerically correct. Alternative strategies for test development in this special case are suggested. (Author)

Describes author's experiences and roles in developing four career-oriented measures: translating the Ramak into English; development of the Career Decision Scale and Occupational Stress Inventory; and current development of the Task Specific Scale of Occupational Self-Efficacy. (Author/ABL)

The stability, reliability, and validity of scores on the subscales of the School Participant Empowerment Scale (P. Short and J. Rinehart, 1992) were studied with data from 4,091 Ohio classroom teachers. Confirmatory factor analysis did not confirm the subscales identified by the instrument developers. Explanatory factor analysis was used to…

Attitudes were assessed after 89 undergraduates were asked either five neutral questions, five questions on the economic welfare of older people, or five on elders' physical frailty. Economic questions resulted in significantly more negative views of the mental aspects of aging, suggesting that questionnaires may contain tacit sources of bias. (SK)

Examined whether reviewers on item-review committees can identify accurately test items that exhibit a variety of flaws. Results with 39 reviewers of a 75-item test show that reviewers exhibit fairly high accuracy rates overall, with statistically significant differences in judgmental accuracy among reviewers. (SLD)

Provides a form of argumentative dialectic to Liz Hamp-Lyons's forum commentary published in an earlier issue of this journal, "Ethical Test Preparation Practice: The Case of TOEFL." Hamp-Lyons responds to the comments.(Author/VWL)

Presents minimization and maximization models for parallel test construction under constraints. The minimization model constructs weakly and strongly parallel tests of minimum length, while the maximization model constructs weakly and strongly parallel tests with maximum test reliability. (Author/SLD)

Discusses problems of diagnosing and repairing infeasible linear-programming models in computerized test assembly. Demonstrates that it is possible to localize the causes of infeasibility, although this is not always easy. (SLD)

Proposes an algorithm for the assembly of multiple test forms in which the multiple-form problem is reduced to a series of computationally less intensive two-form problems. Illustrates how the method can be implemented using 0-1 linear programming and gives two examples. (SLD)

Traditional Item Selection Rules (TISRs) were compared to Intervention Item Selection Rules (IISRs) on the same set of alcohol attitude items from archival data, producing scales with differing psychometric properties. A cross-validation study was run. Guidelines for selecting change-sensitive items, problems and advantages of IISRs are…

Describes the principles that guided the creation and implementation of a system of embedded assessments, the Berkeley Evaluation and Assessment Research System (BEAR). The assessment system builds on methodological advances in alternative assessment. Discusses how the application of the principles generates the component parts of the system. (SLD)

Studied whether a change of test item sequencing, intended to increase test complexity, would cause increased involvement of general intelligence using a sample of Swedish military recruits who received heterogeneous (n=1,778) or homogeneous (n=363) tests. Items presented homogeneously showed higher general intelligence ("G") loadings.…

Discusses the use of "Lexile" units in test construction. (SLD)