Development of the College Descriptive Index (CDI; Form C) is reported. The CDI is an adjective check list that measures eight dimensions of students' satisfaction with college. The instrument was completed by 601 students at four colleges providing information on satisfaction in each of the eight areas. Scoring procedures and a copy of the…

Scales constructed under procedures and criteria outlined by the various traditional and latent trait methods were examined as to whether they varied in characteristics related to scale quality. Scales were constructed from a common pool of items analyzed in full form according to Likert and a one-parameter Rasch model for non-dichotomous data.…

The Title I Evaluation and Reporting System (TIERS) was developed in order to examine the extent to which Title I (now Chapter 1) is remediating the disadvantages in basic skills of educationally deprived children. TIERS Model A contrasts the achievement of Chapter 1 students to publishers' norms for hypothetically comparable groups of students.…

This manual describes the theory behind the Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ) and explains what the subscale and scale scores mean. The SPQ is a 42-item self-report questionnaire used in Australia to assess the extent to which a tertiary student at a college or university endorses different approaches to learning and the motives and strategies…

Applied classical measurement theory was used to study the measurement characteristics of Forms A and B of the Finding Embedded Figures Test (FEFT) when the test is administered in a "no-guessing" or "supply" format. Data provided by 69 students at a private university in the southern United States were used. Both forms of the…

A study was conducted to provide insight into the consistency of reading achievement scores from four standardized tests. Several sets of data were compared to assess the accuracy of grade equivalents or instructional reading levels obtained on standardized tests. Each test was randomly assigned for administration to 23 third graders in a group…

The development and validation of oral native language tests for Dutch adolescents was conducted for both assessment and curriculum development purposes at the secondary level. The oral language situations tested were the monologue, dialogue, and polylogue or group conversation on a topic. An American inventory of common speech subjects was used…

Classical cloze tests have been criticized as unsatisfactory operationalizations of the concept of reduced redundancy and the theory of expectancy grammar. Use of the C-Principle is proposed as an improvement over the classical cloze procedure. Such tests are constructed according to a technique that deletes the second half of every second word in…

The specific performance characteristics of eight alternative cloze test formats were examined at the fourth and sixth grade levels. At each grade, 64 subjects were randomly assigned to one of four basic treatments (every-fifth/standard, every-fifth/cued, total random/standard, and total random/cued) and tested. Responses on each of the cloze…

This document contains three papers from the Methodology Project of the Center for the Study of Evaluation. Methods for characterizing test accuracy are reported in the first two papers. "Bounds on the K Out of N Reliability of a Test, and an Exact Test for Hierarchically Related Items" describes and illustrates how an extension of a…

Two studies were conducted to examine the efficacy of direct measurement, standardized achievement tests, and aptitude-achievement discrepancy scores in distinguishing learning disabled (LD) and nonlearning disabled (NLD) students in grades 3 to 6. For both reading (Study I) and written expression (Study II), students' scores on direct and…

Two psychometric approaches for the investigation of item bias were employed to examine the performance of four sociocultural groups on six subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - Revised (WISC-R). The sample of 950 students was from Pima County, Arizona. One approach involved the comparison of the psychometric indices of…

It has been suggested that a procedure based on the logic of Bayesian probabilities would make it possible to assess individual differences in stereotyping. Given the possible advantages of using the McCauley and Stitt (1978) procedures to measure individual differences, three groups of college students were tested to see if they would use Bayes…

The relationship of affective variables and types of exposure to second language learning was investigated along with the validity of a questionnaire on attitudes toward English. The affective questionnaire, exposure indices, and tests of English proficiency were administered to 403 Chinese, Japanese, and Thai university students who had studied…

Educators are called upon to improve the quality of classroom tests to enhance the learning of content. Less faculty concern for tests than for other features of instruction, compounded by a lack of knowing how to assess different levels of learning with test questions that measure complex processes, appear to generate poor quality classroom…