Forty kindergarten children at the Stephen Bull School in Racine, Wisconsin were tested to determine the effects of a sequence of 12 experimental lessons on the ability of kindergarten children to recognize and conserve numerousness. Subjects were 40-low-to-middle socioeconomic level children divided into treatment and control groups. A specially…

A good criterion-referenced test item is defined as the one which allows the individual to answer correctly if he masters the criterion behavior represented by the item and answer incorrectly if he actually does not master it. Therefore, a good discriminating item for criterion-referenced tests is the one which has a larger proportion of correct…

A structured preliminary interview for children grades 1 to 3 was devised to obtain information on the kinds of situations relevant to seven hypothesized value dimensions based on the following categories of needs: 1) physiological, 2) safety, 3) love, 4) esteem, 5) aesthetic, 6) self-actualization, and, 7) aggression. A total of 23 children from…

The development of a test to measure Locus of Control (IE) in preschool is described. The test is administered individually to a child, who is preferably alone. The set of 40 questions of which the test is comprised posit the occurrence of some reinforcement, and ask the child what the contingencies for the occurrence of the reinforcement are. The…

This paper reports the development of a self-report inventory for measuring work-relevant attitudes. A pool of 72 items was created after a review of the research literature. These items were administered to 89 out-of-school Neighborhood Youth Corps enrollees in Cincinnati and to 78 New Careers enrollees in Durham. Performance ratings were…

Because previous reports have suggested that the lowered validity of tests scored with empirical option weights might be explained by a capitalization of the keying procedures on omitting tendencies, a procedure was devised to key options empirically with a "correction-for-guessing" constraint. Use of the new procedure with Graduate…

The study was designed to probe the changes that might occur in achievement test results if test items were made easier to read. The rewording of the test, the cross-validation of items by a panel, and the application of readability formulas to the reworded test gave, in theory, a comparable instrument. By agreement of readability formulas (Dale…

An attempt toward the development of a criterion-referenced test as a joint project of the Puerto Rican Division of Evaluation and the Mathematics Program in the Department of Education is discussed. The approach used included the following steps: (1) clarification of objectives, (2) development of test items for each objective, (3) development of…

This paper completes reporting of the development of scales for measuring morale among Air Force personnel. A previously developed questionnaire keyed for eight scales was given to an independent sample. When these scores were compared with criteria derived from interviews, ratings, and Air Force records, validities were uniformly low. Although…

Test items were developed for assessing the mastery of 30 selected science concepts on classification. These concepts were drawn from the areas of physical, biological, and earth sciences. A schema of twelve test items was developed for each concept. Procedures used in the construction and revision of these test items are described. The tests were…

Attribution theory predicts that actions seen as specifically directed toward a person have greater impact than those not so directed. It was hypothesized that agreement between self-evaluation and another's evaluation increases personalism of received evaluations, increasing both impact and tendency to reciprocate liking or disliking. In a 2 x 2…

The validity of an evaluation model for mastery testing applications was investigated. Three variables were tested in an experiment using 96 third grade subjects--amount of training, number of alternates in an item, and number of items. The concept hierarchy involved an orderly progression from a concept involving one relevant of three varying…

The objective of the study was to develop a test of concept formation which would: (1) not be biased by reading difficulty; (2) be sufficiently stimulating to capture the attention of the students; (3) incorporate both aspects of concept formation of discriminative response and conservation; (4) have a spread of item difficulty appropriate for…

The construction and validation of a test to assess the concepts of light and shadows contained in the New York City Board of Education bulletin "Science K-2" are described. The final form of the Non-Reading Concept Test is a filmstrip with 32 color drawings. The first two items are trial questions to familiarize students with the test format. The…

INSTRUMENTS WERE ADMINISTERED TO PRESCHOOL CHILDREN TO MEASURE THEIR PERFORMANCE ON VARIOUS TASKS. THE INSTRUMENTS WERE (1) A BUTTONING TASK FOR FINE MOTOR COORDINATION, (2) A PUZZLE TASK FOR VISUAL DISCRIMINATION, AND (3) A TARGET GAME FOR GROSS MOTOR COORDINATION. EACH INSTRUMENT CONSISTED OF FIVE TASKS GRADED IN DIFFICULTY, ADJUSTED TO THE…