A model is described for generating Quick Word Tests to assess the sight recognition vocabulary of secondary students along with a high utility list of 596 words to screen automatic recognition sight vocabulary for native speakers, second language and special education students, and adults in basic education and literacy classes. (Author/CL)

Personal construct psychologists have suggested various psychological functions explain differences in the stability of constructs. Among these functions are constellatory and loose construction. This paper argues that measurement error is a more parsimonious explanation of the differences in construct stability reported in these studies. (Author)

To obtain reliable and valid measures of cognitive development in group settings, the Test of Logical Thinking, a paper-and pencil test of formal reasoning ability, was developed. It was administered to high school stuents, and alternate forms were then devised. Applications are discussed. (MNS)

The Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children is reviewed with respect to manuals, test construction, and norming procedures; reliability; and validity; evidence administration and scoring procedures; types of scores and interpretative guidelines; and the bias issue. (Author/CL)

Describes the development of the Behavior Rating Index for Children (BRIC), a 13-item summated category partition scale that provides a prothetic measure of children's behavior problems. Evaluation of the BRIC with 600 referred and nonreferred children suggested adequate reliability and validity. (JAC)

The study describes two revisions of the I. Daly and M. Miller Writing Apprehensions Scale. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability coefficients of the second revision were greater than .90. The revised measure should be a useful tool for future research examining the writing anxiety of younger students. (Author/CL)

Alternate forms of the state anxiety (A-State) and trait anxiety (A-Trait) scales of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) were constructed by dividing the 20 items of each scale into two briefer forms having 10 items each. The alternate forms and item statistics are presented. (Author/BW)

Three experiments were conducted with college psychology students to determine whether the use of filler items in Rotter's I-E scale fulfills its stated objective of obscuring the purpose of the scale. Fillers didn't effect I-E scores, impede subjects from faking good, or obscure knowledge of the scale. (Author/DEP)

Changes in the full scale reliability of the WISC-R were computed at three age levels when each subtest was omitted by itself. The same procedure was followed with those subtests which independently had the smallest effect in lowering full scale reliability. Cautions were noted concerning the exclusion of subtests. (Author)

This paper provides analytic evaluations of expected (marginal) true-score measures for binary items given their item response theory (IRT) calibration. Under the assumption of normal trait distributions, marginalized true scores, error variance, true score variance, and reliability for norm-referenced and criterion-references interpretations are…

This module explains test review as it is now performed in most large-scale testing programs. It addresses the fundamental aspects of item review principally for fairness, sensitivity, and bias, and to a lesser degree for content and construct validity. The module is designed for a survey course and thus has a broad, rather than deep, focus. The…

An ongoing study has been initiated to explore teacher perceptions of principal performance. An instrument, the Principal Profile, had been developed earlier by these researchers to measure principal performance. The existing 134-item instrument, which had been administered only to graduate students, was administered to 258 teachers in one school…

This paper presents an approach to item pool design that has the potential to improve on the quality of current item pools in educational and psychological testing and thus to increase both measurement precision and validity. The approach consists of the application of mathematical programming techniques to calculate optimal blueprints for item…

Several methods have been developed for use on constrained adaptive testing. Item pool partitioning, multistage testing, and testlet-based adaptive testing are methods that perform well for specific cases of adaptive testing. The weighted deviation model and the Shadow Test approach can be more generally applied. These methods are based on…

Preventing items in adaptive testing from being over- or underexposed is one of the main problems in computerized adaptive testing. Though the problem of overexposed items can be solved using a probabilistic item-exposure control method, such methods are unable to deal with the problem of underexposed items. Using a system of rotating item pools,…