Testing and assessment have become extremely important components of the educational program. The purpose of this position paper is to provide factual and policy-related information that may be of use to school boards as they design or improve their districts' testing and assessment policies. It is the New York State policy that school boards…

Because of the decline in academic skills in college freshmen, colleges and universities have enacted placement testing to identify those students with inadequate skills in reading, writing, and math for placement in remedial classes. This document discussed reasons for testing, concern about excessive testing, and results of three past surveys of…

This paper presents a conceptualization of test bias for standardized ability tests which is based on multidimensional, non-parametric, item response theory. An explanation of how individually-biased items can combine through a test score to produce test bias is provided. It is contended that bias, although expressed at the item level, should be…

A discussion of the new Sri Lankan General Certificate of Education (GCE) O-Level standardized test of English focuses on how new ideas in testing have been implemented in the test and on their effect on classroom practice and the quality of English instruction. The discussion begins with a brief outline of the history and context in which the new…

The Listening Summary Translation Exam (LSTE)-Spanish is designed to assess the ability to comprehend and summarize in written English recorded conversations spoken in Spanish. Language and topics of the exam are representative of conversations the Federal Bureau of Investigation routinely monitors. This test consists of two subtests, one…

Effective writing assessment involves judging how well a writer is encouraged by the classroom's social context to pull together ideas and to bring experience to bear on abstractions. Four main points can be made to justify this view. First, assessment by standardized test determines a teach-and-test model of instruction. But a curriculum that…

A proposal to institute "a common test in the academic competencies" of English and mathematics as an admission requirement for all Nova Scotian universities was announced by the Royal Commission on Post-Secondary Education in 1985. The commission viewed writing proficiency as an innate ability, independent of learning, environment,…

This study examines the differences of approaches to second language testing in West Germany in regard to linguistic bases, pedagogical aims, and the desired degree of standardization and empirical quality control. One approach demands a curriculum-integrated diagnosis of language development aiming at a highly differentiated description of the…

Seven schools that have re-evaluated their needs for standardized college admissions examinations were studied to explore their admissions and innovative testing policies. The schools include: (1) Bates College in Lewiston, Maine; (2) Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine; (3) Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration in Cambridge,…

Uses of the variety of scores generated by standardized achievement tests are discussed. Desirable characteristics of scales, raw score scales, percent of correct items, percentile ranks, grade equivalents, normal curve equivalents, and scale scores are considered. The various meanings and purposes of each type of score are discussed. It is…

This book was designed as an assessment of standardized testing and its alternatives at the secondary school level. More specifically, a framework for thinking systematically and creatively about assessment, a review of the uses and limitations of standardized tests of general achievement, and descriptions of several methods that may offer more…

A confirmatory factor analysis was used to determine the respective viability of factor structure models for the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) standardization data. The traditional verbal-performance split was compared to an alternative model proposed by Gutkin, Reynolds and Galvin. The confirmatory analysis indicated that the…

A study was conducted at Florissant Valley Community College (FVCC) to compare three standardized tests--the Iowa Silent Reading Test (ISRT), the Nelson-Denny Reading Test (NDRT), and the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test (SDRT)--for use in assessing student reading skills. The study population of 402 students included 216 students who agreed to…

The California Achievement Test was administered to the students of the Mesa Public Schools in April, 1981, and again in April, 1982. This state-mandated test is administered to all students in grades 1 through 12. Although this report is directed toward the performance of Mesa students at the elementary level, a general overview of the…