Since the approval of the Basic Skills Improvement Policy in 1978, the Massachusetts Department of Education has been developing tests and alternative forms for the assessment of student achievement in five basic skills content areas: reading, writing, mathematics, listening, and speaking. Because of the lack of previous research on which to draw…

The Mental Development Scales: Birth to Three Years are instruments designed to assess developmental levels of young children within a setting familiar to the child. They (1) provide a greater understanding of child behavior and development, (2) serve as a basis for planning an individualized curriculum for each child, and (3) furnish the means…

Procedures devised for computing factor matching statistics in questionnaire construction are described. In a study of the impact of vocational education on social, affective and nontechnical development of students, an attitude questionnaire to measure outcomes was developed. Each item in the final section had a six-point Likert type response…

Different formats for four types of research items were studied for ease of computer data entry. The types were: (1) numeric response items; (2) individual multiple choice items; (3) multiple choice items with the same response items; and (4) card column indicator placement. Each of the 13 experienced staff members of a major university's Data…

The Conceptual Learning and Development (CLD) Model suggests four successive levels of concept learning: (1) concrete--recognizing an object which has been encountered previously; (2) identity--recognizing a known object when it appears in a different spatial, time, or sensory perspective; (3) classificatory--generalizing that two items are alike…

The primary purpose of this study was to develop and validate a measure of counselor empathy. A pilot study was conducted with 72 undergraduate students and 12 graduate students in order to develop the Empathic Differential (ED)D. Twenty-one bi-polar objectives were yielded significant through intercorrelation analysis. The validation study…

This 32-item bibliography was compiled to provide access to research and discussions of domain referenced testing. It is not limited to any educational level, nor is it confined to any specific curriculum area. Five data bases were searched by computer. A computer search of the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) data base yielded…

The effect of varying the percentages of female soldiers assigned to representative types of Test, Operation, and Evaluation units on the unit's capability to perform its mission under field conditions was assessed. Empirical data were provided to test the null hypothesis that increasing the proportion of women in selected units would not impair…

Presented is the technical report on development of the Observational Checklists for Referral (OCR), developed to assist teachers of young children in identifying problems that interfere with learning, making appropriate referrals to other professionals, and communicating with parents and professionals. Sections cover summaries of external…

This paper describes an instrument used to assess the receptive language of children. The bilingual child is tested first in the non-dominant language. When the ceiling is reached in the non-dominant language, the tester switches to the dominant language. (The ideal situation would be to give the test in one language one day, then repeat the test…

From a special 8-part series, describing the individual summer experiences of 79 typical elementary teachers.

The testing of bilingual students poses particular problems for analyses of performance, item bias, and test adequacy. A test administered in two languages to children selected for their language facility provides a special arena for the study of these problems. The Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS) was selected because the test content…

Over 240 secondary school principals, guidance counselors, and teachers were interviewed to determine the relative degree of emphasis that should be placed on various topical areas in evaluation during the preservice training of teachers. The specific topical areas included writing behavioral objectives, developing objective tests, developing…

This paper presents research on the contribution of the amount of schooling to performance in French as a second language, assessed by newly developed measures of communicative competence. Test items addressed three components of communicative competence: grammatical, sociolinguistic, and strategic. Aware of the relationship of context to…

A study was conducted to construct a cloze screening instrument to gain information about the reading capabilities of college students enrolled in specific courses and to find out what support services these students needed. Subjects included 464 college students ranging from entering freshmen to graduate students. Cloze passages were constructed…