The following information on the development of the 1978 Metropolitan Achievement Tests (MAT), fifth edition, is given; the purpose and importance of item analysis, steps preceding item tryout, characteristics of the sample population, and data obtained. Item analysis allows elimination of undesirable items, adjustment of the difficulty level of…

This is the history of an important educational institution in Australia. The work looks at the problems of establishing a new institution in the late 1920s and traces its varying fortunes through 50 years to 1980. It is more, however, than an institutional history. It analyses early contributions to educational research, its subsequent growth in…

The research discussed in this report is a continuation of an effort to develop a set of diagnostic subtests in phonics and structure with empirically determined mastery levels. The complete test will assess the word identification skills of elementary school children. Revisions made in the test battery following administration of the Phonics and…

The work reported culminates research by the Project on the Assessment and Analysis of Word Identification Skills in Reading. The Word Identification Test battery was designed for elementary school children, with attention to the major issues pertaining to skills mastery and assessment that are raised in the review of mastery learning. Five…

A brief, nontechnical state-of-the-art review of four common instruments and current practices in the field of scholastic aptitude testing is presented. The instruments include: the 1971 Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT), 1973 Henmon-Nelson Tests of Mental Ability (H-NTMA), 1979 Otis-Lennon School Ability Test (OLSAT) and the 1970 Short Form Test of…

Challenges to classical psychometric theory are examined in the context of a broader range of fundamental, derived, and intuitive measurements in psychology; the challenges include content-referenced testing, latent trait theory, and generalizability theory. A taxonomy of psychological measurement is developed, based on: (1) purposes of…

A well developed multiple choice test is a reliable instrument for grading students and evaluating teacher presentation. There are three steps in the development of a valid multiple choice examination: 1) design or "blueprinting," 2) item construction, and 3) item analysis and evaluation. "Blueprinting" is the identification of the types of…

Assessment and examination in higher education are often questioned for their social consequences, and for their reliability. However, another matter of concern is the relationship of examination and assessment to the process of learning and teaching in institutions of higher education. Assessment procedures are an integral part of the learning…

Described is the development of a test of inductive reasoning for fifth graders by Max Jerman. Nine test items were selected from the French Kit on the basis of pretest statistics; each item has eight parts. Appendices to the brief description include item and scale statistics and a matrix of correlations between scales and total score. (SD)

The factor structure, and thereby the underlying construct of the What I Think and Feel Test (WITF) was determined. The delineation of subscales of anxiety within this revision of the Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale was significant, since anxiety is a multidimensional characteristic. Responses of 329 children (grades 1-12) to the 28 anxiety…

Rasch and classical test analysis methods were compared with respect to their similarities and differences in the identification of noninformative items and implausible person records. Using computer simulated data with known parameters, each model was evaluated in terms of its effectiveness in: (1) identifying noninformative or "bad"…

Approximately 600 linguists, secondary School English department chairpersons, and their staff members participated in a study of whether active members of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) who were in leadership positions in their schools possessed language attitudes that were linguistically informed. The subjects responded to a…

The term, standardized achievement test, has evolved to imply a broad package of materials which includes a wide array of norms, lists of scoring services and educational objectives tested, and aids to interpretation. Test authors are convinced that that individual differences in achievement do exist; that recognition of these differences will…

Generally speaking, the main purposes of second language tests are survey; didactic, psychological or sociological research; and evaluation, the latter being the concern of this paper. Evaluation tests measure the knowledge the learner has of the second or foreign languages, and may be subdivided into the following categories: (1) aptitude tests,…

The report covers preparatory work for a further two-year study of student affiliation and drop-out at a four-year urban commuter college, Portland State College. The principal task was the development and testing of a series of scales measuring various aspects of student affiliation. After preliminary testing, scale test items were administered…