Argues that state mandated tests should emphasize critical thinking, thus mitigating the concern that such tests encourage instructional focus on rote factual learning. Conceptualizing critical thinking as argumentation provides a way to focus instruction and assessment on types of critical thinking valued in the workplace. Illustrates how this…

Develops a conceptual framework that addresses score comparability for performance assessments, adaptive tests, paper-and-pencil tests, and alternate item pools for computerized tests. Outlines testing situation aspects that might threaten score comparability and describes procedures for evaluating the degree of score comparability. Suggests ways…

Describes educational assessment in Singapore and discusses changes planned to focus assessment on more real-life situations while taking into account research on learning and critical thinking. (SLD)

Analyzed the data from the Rutter Children's Behaviour Questionnaire (M. Rutter, 1967) from 450 Swedish children in grades 2, 5, and 8 using latent variable analysis. Findings show a structure described by a nested hierarchical model with seven first order factors. Some items have rather weak relations to their latent factors. (SLD)

This volume describes the characteristics and functions of test items, presents editorial guidelines for writing test items, presents methods for determining the quality of test items, and presents a compendium of important issues about test items. (SLD)

This study developed a test battery to assess the cognitive skills in children with physical limitations. A preliminary battery of 83 items was administered to 26 children, aged 26 to 36 months, with severe physical impairments. Rasch analysis yielded a final battery of 35 items with high internal consistency, interrater reliability, and…

A strength of this exploration of testing and test use in the United States is the concern for how tests affect student conceptions of learning and student relation to knowledge. A weakness is a persistent confounding of classroom and large-scale assessment for state and national purposes. (SLD)

"Assessing Student Performance" sets forth arguments for looking at testing and assessment. The exploration is more about morality and epistemology than about technology and politics. A principal assumption is that mainstream assessment and testing philosophy is flawed. (SLD)

Conducted a confirmatory factor analysis of score profiles of the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) in the United Kingdom to determine whether tests can replace teacher-assessed coursework in the GCSE. Results suggest that replacing school project work by tests could undo a wholesale replacement of school project work by tests.…

This article offers some solutions used in the assembly of the computerized Uniform Certified Public Accountancy (CPA) licensing examination as practical alternatives for operational programs producing large numbers of forms. The Uniform CPA examination was offered as an adaptive multistage test (MST) beginning in April of 2004. Examples of…

A review of articles in Psychological Assessment reveals that many researchers develop instruments without the benefit of consultation with members of the target population. To the extent that researchers do consult the target population, most fail to bring consultation in early enough to inform the identification and specification of key…

This research examined 2 elements of multiple-choice test construction, balancing the key and optimal number of options. In Experiment 1 the 3 conditions included a balanced key, overrepresentation of a and b responses, and overrepresentation of c and d responses. The results showed that error-patterns were independent of the key, reflecting…

This study describes the four-phase process used in developing the "Employer Openness Survey" (EOS). The EOS is an 18-item instrument designed to measure the openness of employers to hiring, accommodating, and promoting workers with disabilities. During the first phase, the authors generated potential questions and pilot-tested them with…

Many speakers with repaired cleft palate have reduced intelligibility, but there are limitations with current procedures for assessing intelligibility. The aim of this study was to construct a single-word intelligibility test for speakers with cleft palate. The test used a multiple-choice identification format, and was based on phonetic contrasts…

Students' ignorance of civics is often viewed with alarm, as in interpretations of the 1998 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP); yet adults' incomplete knowledge of government is considered by many to be reasonable and acceptable. We show that aggregate distributions of political knowledge are actually quite similar for students and…