The effects of aggregation on the reliability of measures of academic performance were explored in two studies. In the first study, 30 elementary-age children were tested four times on the same forms of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests and the Ginn 720 Reading Passage measures. Group stability coefficients, within-subject reliability…

A sample of slightly over 1500 students was drawn from even-numbered grades in public schools of the U.S. Virgin Islands, and was given the 1973 edition of the Stanford Achievement Test (in grades 2,4,6, & 8) and the Test of Academic Skills (grades 10 and 12) to assess student academic achievement in the basic skill areas of mathematics,…

Uses of discipline and program cost data by Indiana private colleges and universities are discussed, and cost data are presented. Attention is directed to the immediate and longer range uses of the data, the applicability of the methods to smaller institutions, reliability of the data, and the future of this analysis. The findings were used for…

Noting that use of the reading-related components of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) by state education agencies has ranged from extensive to moderate to limited, this paper presents case studies of the ways in which states have used the NAEP models. The first half of the paper describes extensive use by Minnesota and…

This study attempts to determine whether there exists a negative interconnection between the creative and testable nature-of-science (NOS) conceptions in college students' conceptual ecology by investigating, through a pair of IHV-assisted teaching experiments, the effect of raising the status of each NOS conception in students' conceptual ecology…

U.S. universities and colleges offering distance education courses have increased immensely since 1998, and by 2004 it was expected that distance learners will constitute about 14% of all those enrolled in degree programs. In its preliminary review of distance learning, the Institute for Higher Education Policy (1998) emphasized the need for…

Observer reliability and the confusability of codes, two sources of error in the collection of classroom observational data, are examined. Confusability is defined as the extent to which one code is mistakenly recorded as another code. Observational data were collected in each of 172 first grade and 171 third grade Follow Through and comparison…

A study was done to explore the feasibility of developing a set of activity preference (interest) scales corresponding to twenty-two second (higher) order work dimensions derived from the Occupation Analysis Inventory (OAI). (The OAI is an instrument containing 622 work elements which are descriptions of work activities and conditions on which…

Four different procedures were used for estimating the proportion of persons who would be classified consistently as either passing both of two parallel tests or failing both. These four methods were applied at each of four different mastery level scores for each of three different length tests. Data were based on 50 replications of each procedure…

This paper discusses issues connected with the reliability of the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) in terms of behavior prediction, neonatal behavioral organization and stability, and consequent implications for study of newborns. Discussion focuses on: (1) reliability, and (2) prediction and neonatal assessment. The NBAS is seen as a…

A study was carried out to ascertain whether language instructors or naive judges were more reliable in judging oral proficiency. Fifteen students were chosen from the ESL (English as a second language) center at Southern Illinois University to record a tape while reading passages in English. The tape and a questionnaire were administered to 70…

Research partially supported by the UCLA Center for the Study of Evaluation of Instructional Programs.

The Language Arts Test of Cognitive Functioning (LATCF) was investigated to determine if the measure could give specific information about the thinking required for language arts tasks. The LATCF was developed by the author and consists of six anecdotes or tasks that the student must solve or complete. The anecdotes are built on six functions that…

Oral proficiency tests were constructed for French, German, and English by the Dutch National Institute for Educational Measurement to determine how well students could cope linguistically with daily living situations, after 3 years of foreign language instruction. Originally the rating scale featured six categories. Because of difficulties in…

This paper addresses the lack of language dominance assessment instruments and curriculum materials for Greek-speaking children in the U.S. These children need appropriate language screening tests, based on research and data derived from their native language group, for diagnostic and placement purposes. The development of an instrument for…