The purposes of this study were to compare student, school, and group average distributions of two standardized tests, the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) and Stanford 7 Plus Achievement Test, and examine the American College Testing Programs college entrance examinations (Grades 11-12). In addition to the student-school norm comparisons, ratios…

During the 1985-86 school year, an evaluation plan utilizing standardized norm-referenced test information was initiated within the Wichita Public School System in Kansas. The plan had four identifiable factors: (1) a growth measurement concept; (2) a simplified computation process; (3) a means of integration of growth measurement within user…

A review of the implications for the validity of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) of scientific developments accompanying the revival of cognitive psychology provides insights into the importance of such changes. A distinction can be made between a process-oriented or diagnostic test and an outcomes-oriented test such as the SAT. Since the SAT…

The English Language Testing Service (ELTS) Revision Project is a joint British and Australian effort to develop a new test of English language proficiency for use with foreign students. The existing test, in use for seven years, is being radically revised to combine indirect, semi-direct, and direct test types and to focus on both general and…

Plans for program assessment within the various units of the University System of Georgia are presented. The Subcommittee on Academic Degree Program Assessment believed the University System of Georgia should encourage and support a sustained effort to assess academic programs resulting in baccalaureate degrees, that the implementation of program…

Three presentations from the Third National Conference on Assessment in Higher Education are included. In "Assessment and Human Values: Confessions of a Reformed Number Cruncher," Alexander W. Astin, focuses on measuring education productivity, assessment lessons from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program, a talent-development…

Seven sample age subgroups were selected from official score reports from the College Level Examination Program (CLEP) to determine age cohort performance on the CLEP English Composition examination. The 154 CLEP English Composition score reports received by the Community College of Allegheny County (Pennsylvania) between July 1983 and June 1985…

This paper reports the results of two separate, but related analyses. The first describes trends in the number of college graduates who obtained teacher certification, and changes over the decade in the distribution of new certificants' demographic characteristics, subject specialities, and score on the National Teachers Examination (NTE). The…

At Santa Fe Community College, the development of a biology course and departmental final examination was accomplished in the following stages: (1) faculty reached consensus on course content, major objectives and sub-objectives; (2) faculty contributed final examination questions corresponding to the 10 major course topics to a pool for review…

The effectiveness of direct measurement techniques and standardized achievement tests for assessing within-individual change over a 10-week period was examined. The Reading Comprehension and Language subtests from the Stanford Achievement Tests and direct measures of reading and written language were administered twice to 83 low-achieving students…

A new approach to assessing unexpected differential item performance (item bias or item fairness) was developed and applied to the item responses of males and females to Scholastic Aptitude Test and Test of Standard Written English items administered operationally in December 1977. While the main body of the report describes the particulars of the…

This paper describes and evaluates a comprehensive school and instructional management system developed and implemented in one of the nation's largest and fastest growing school districts. Since implementing the system, standardized achievement scores have increased an average 20 percentile points. The system has components to: (1) clearly set…

The Title I Evaluation and Reporting System (TIERS) was developed in order to examine the extent to which Title I (now Chapter 1) is remediating the disadvantages in basic skills of educationally deprived children. TIERS Model A contrasts the achievement of Chapter 1 students to publishers' norms for hypothetically comparable groups of students.…

The object of this study was to find out whether learning process and reading variables predict first-year grade point average (GPA) in college. The learning process variables were: (1) deep learning; (2) surface learning; and (3) achievement orientation. Reading variables dealt with factual and inferential knowledge. Also examined was whether…

The sixth annual "State Education Performance Chart" compares the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 39 variables arranged in 4 major groups. The groups are: student performance; resource inputs; state reforms; and population characteristics. Examples of the variables are: ACT scores; SAT scores; graduation rate; average…