The evaluation of a testing program is necessary before or during a sound total project evaluation. Ideally, the testing program study should be concurrent with, and equal in magnitude to, the total project evaluation. Step one in an evaluation is to define the testing program's objectives in operational terms. Step two is a thorough description…

A filmstrip with associated audio track has been developed to cover the major planning steps in the development of a measurement instrument such as a test or questionnaire. The filmstrip addresses the following six questions: Why am I testing? What should I test? Whom am I testing? What kinds of questions should I use? How long should my test be?…

The Recruit Performance Test (RPT) was developed to meet a widely recognized need for an accurate measurement of achievement in learning the military/psychomotor skills in recruit training. It was hoped that the test would be of special value in assessing the achievement of Category IV personnel, who are thought to be penalized by the present…

A new method of constructing tests is presented in this article for the purpose of developing a test from student perception of the course. The Test on Understanding Science (TOUS) and the Science Process Inventory (SPI) were used as sources of items. A random sub-sample of 921 students, taking both the pretest and posttest of TOUS and SPI during…

The item (difficulty and discrimination) and test (reliability and validity) statistics in classical test theory are highly dependent upon the calibration sample of individuals used. The estimates of item and test parameters in classical test theory is valid within a range of interest along the characteristic measured. Generally, this range of…

To determine whether the so-called "two-cultures gap" exists between the humanities and the sciences in high school, and if so, its extent and nature, a series of relatively unstructured interviews were held with science and humanities teachers in six Connecticut high schools to determine what attitudinal differences existed between the two…

The point is made that, though foreign language teachers often have among their goals the knowledge by students of the unique patterns of thought, behavior and attitudes that characterize members of a target culture, there have been few systematic attempts to evaluate these outcomes. A general design for such a test is suggested, including three…

The Preschool Racial Attitude Measure (PRAM) has been developed to provide a method for assessing the attitudes of pre-literature children toward Caucasian and Black persons. This manual provides information concerning the administration and scoring of the revised procedure--PRAM II. The revision entailed doubling the length, improving the…

This document is a compilation of abstracts of 20 research papers presented at the 51st Annual Meeting of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Six reports concern methods of instruction, eight investigate patterns of learning, three deal with evaluation of attitudes, and three reports cover tests and test construction. (DT)

This report describes procedures used in developing a set of selection requirements and training objectives for operators of school buses. The selection requirements include collection and interpretation of personal history and other background information, physical examination covering vision, hearing, handicaps, and general health, written…

For individualized or computer assisted instruction, norm referenced testing is inadequate to determine each individual's mastery on specific kinds of tasks. Hively's item forms and Ferguson's stratified item forms, both based on observable characteristics of the problems, and Scandura's algorithmic technology, positing that persons use rules to…

The purposes of this study were to determine the feasibility of group testing of conservation and examine the differential performance of students drawn from various populations. The effects of three factors were examined: grade level (2, 4, 6), SES (disadvantaged, advantaged, and race (Black, White, Latin). (Author)

The activities of the Nucleus Testing Committee, particularly its Curriculum Related Subcommittee, of the Madison, Wisconsin public schools are described in relation to its effort to bring about increased awareness of the need for reexamination of both district-wide and local school evaluation procedures. The sub-committee's recommendations are…

As part of a process of restructuring a city-wide testing program in Madison, Wisconsin, members of the school staff were surveyed concerning their perception of priorities for a testing program. The survey list, presented in Table I, was developed from a pool of items contributed by representative members of the staff. As a result of the survey,…

Confidence weighting (CW) tends to improve the reliability of easy tests; the Coombs-type multiple-response (MR) option tends to improve the reliability of hard tests. It was hypothesized that, on a test of moderate difficulty, offering both the CW and MR response options would improve reliability more than either alone. Twenty-four subjects took…