Section 3 of Phase II of the Pennsylvania Plan is concerned with the adequacy of the educational quality assessment instruments. An overall discussion of reliability--content, criterion related, and construct--is presented. Reliability coefficients for the assessment inventories are provided and empirical studies of validity are described. (PR)

Item options of shortened forms of the Graduate Record Examination Verbal and Quantitative tests were empirically weighted by two variants of a method originally attributed to Guttman. The first method assigned to each option of an item the mean standard score on the remaining items of all subjects choosing that option. The second procedure…

Differences in design between norm referenced measures (NRM) and criterion referenced measures (CRM) are reviewed, and some of the procedures proposed on designing and evaluating CRM are examined. Differences in design of NRM and CRM are said to arise from the different purposes that underlie each measure. In addition, there are differences among…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether students' responses to the Ullman student evaluation of teaching, the Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) instrument, were biased by their achievement. The instrument was administered to all 325 students taking a second course in calculus with economic applications, near the end of the course;…

EXPERIMENTAL TESTS (23) WERE CONSTRUCTED TO MEASURE CERTAIN BEHAVIORAL-COGNITION FACTORS OF SOCIAL ABILITY. THE TESTS, AS WELL AS 24 MARKER TESTS OF SEMANTIC AND FIGURAL ABILITY, WERE ADMINISTERED TO WHITE, MIDDLE-CLASS, AVERAGE INTELLIGENCE 11TH GRADERS (240). THE STIMULI CONSISTED MAINLY OF PHOTOGRAPHS, DRAWINGS, AND CARTOONS. WORDS WERE USED AS…

An item analysis was performed on two rating scales, the Delta Survey of Nurses and the Delta Nursing Survey, developed for evaluating the preparation and job performance of nursing graduates. Resulting data supported the basic design of the instruments. The revised instruments consist of seven fewer items; two subtests were deleted, and a number…

Various types of validity for the Barber Scales of Self-Regard: Preschool Form have been reported. The purpose of this report is to present the results of further analysis of the data collected in a 1975 field test in which 177 children were rated on the seven Barber Scales, ninety mothers rated their children on the Barber Scales and on the…

Information is presented on the validity, reliability, and normative data of the Ashlock Tests of Visual Perception-Revised, a screening test for perceptual difficulties in preschoolers. Discussed are implications for using the test for screening, diagnosis, and educational planning. (CL)

Difficulties involved with the evaluation of drug abuse prevention programs are numerous. Tentative Drug Use Scale (TDUS) was designed in response to a number of specific problems associated with obtaining behavioral data. Advantages of this scale over others are discussed. Reliability and validity information are provided. (Author)

The current controversy over standardized tests is not an effort to abandon assessment, rather it is an effort to develop assessment procedures that are more in keeping with a new set of educational and social assumptions. (Author/IRT)

In response to J. Lerner's article (EC 081 334) on differences between the fields of reading and learning disabilities (LD), the author stresses that the essential role of the LD specialist is that of an educator. (DB)

Measures of multivariate reliability were calculated for profiles of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) subscales on three age groups. Profile dimensions based on reliability considerations were established and matched across age groups and with factor analytic dimensions. WISC was found to measure general ability and verbal and…

The concurrent validity of the Student Opinion Inventory (SOI) factor scales was determined and the reproducibility of the reliability estimates found in pilot studies of the instrument examined. Responses to the SOI from students indicated that 5 of the 6 factor scales of the SOI possessed some concurrent validity. (Author/BJG)

Compares the Fry, Dale-Chall, and SMOG readability formulas and cautions users about their limitations. (RB)