Relatively brief interactions with a commercial game that involved blocks and matching patterns are shown to cause a significant improvement in children's performances on the WISC-R Block Design subtest. Two experiments are described using 10-year-old children in game and no-game conditions. (Author/CM)

Current coaching practices used in training test wiseness for analogy items on standardized test batteries were investigated in a 3-group design involving about 100 undergraduates in each condition. The largest improvement came in items in the middle range of difficulty, but overall effects of coaching were important. (SLD)

Reviews the use of tests with deaf students, especially reading-comprehension tests, noting documented differences in test-taking abilities of deaf and hearing students and specific compensatory test-taking strategies used by deaf readers. A rationale for including a formal test-taking skills component in the curriculum for deaf students is…

Examined how coaching affects the predictive validity and fairness of scholastic aptitude tests. A coached (n=271) and uncoached (n=95) group were compared. Comparison revealed that although coaching enhanced scores on the Israeli Psychometric Entrance Test by about 25% of a standard deviation, it did not create a prediction bias or affect…

A big problem with performance tests and standards is their specificity, or lack of generalizability. "Keeping no secrets" and "teaching to the test" for performance tasks and traditional tests are absolutely necessary if schools are to prepare students adequately to meet performance standards. This nontraditional approach…

Discusses appropriate ways to prepare students for performance assessments and proposes a list of six guidelines for teaching to performance assessments. The focus is on elementary and secondary education. It is believed that these guidelines will help balance the domain and sample problem. (SLD)

Spurred in part by University of California (UC) President Richard Atkinson's February 2001 proposal to drop the SAT I for UC applicants, more attention is being paid to other tests such as the SAT II and ACT. Proponents of these alternative exams argue that the SAT I is primarily an aptitude test measuring some vague concept of "inherent…

The focus of this report is to summarize the research that has been conducted thus far on the new SAT Writing section. The evidence provided reveals that the new writing section has satisfactory psychometric quality in that its reliability is acceptable; it is significantly related to first-year college GPA and college English grades; it has been…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of teaching eight secondary students with disabilities, including seven with learning disabilities, a strategy for answering a variety of inferential questions. A multiple-baseline across-subjects design was employed. Outcome measures included scores on researcher-devised comprehension…

After-school or out-of-school programs offer additional social, academic, and extracurricular activities and experiences to supplement the regular school day. College preparation programs offer activities that are designed to enable youth to prepare for a variety of college-related tasks, with services including test preparation, academic…

Counselor Education professors can assist students with comprehensive examination preparation. The first author, a graduate student in counseling, developed these ideas while studying for the comprehensive examination for the Master of Science degree program in counseling. All five members of her study group passed the examination the first time.

As public employees, educators should expect to be held accountable for their use of public funds. Nonetheless, the various state governments and now the U.S. Department of Education have implemented high-stakes achievement testing as the nearly singular approach to accountability. While these accountability efforts vary in a number of ways,…

Based on the classic test-wiseness principles of J. Millman, C. H. Bishop, and R. Ebel, the STAR strategy streamlines the taking of timed tests. Before explaining the strategy to students, the instructor can convince students of the advantages of the strategy by administering a short test to determine students' test-wiseness. The STAR strategy…

A study of 696 undergraduates at the University of Northern Colorado was undertaken to determine the effects of computerized unit test item feedback on final examination scores. The study, which employed the PHOENIX computer managed instruction system, included students at all undergraduate levels enrolled in an Oceanography course. To determine…

This report is an evaluation of the test preparation clinic program sponsored by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The project's primary objective is described as improving the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) scores of low income black high school students, thus increasing the pool of minority youngsters able to meet…