Designed to explore new reading readiness predictors that are not found extensively in the more commonly used commercial group tests and to develop new indices to measure the level of reading readiness of beginning first graders, a study was undertaken involving 115 children. The factor of sex in reading readiness was also investigated. An…

Designed to serve as an introductory manual to mastery testing in science, this guide provides basic information about a variety of related topics such as mastery learning, criterion-referenced and norm-referenced testing, how to develop a mastery test, when and how to use a mastery test, limitations of mastery tests, and a list of mastery tests…

The goal of this program was to improve the monitorship of sex bias and sex-role stereotyping in a federal educational program. A federally-supported vocational education program was chosen as the target of the project. The project improved the monitoring of the program by (1) identifying the potential criteria to be used in eliminating sex bias,…

This report describes the development of a criterion-referenced proficiency examination for dental auxiliaries that consists of both written and performance tests in each of five areas: chairside assisting, patient education, diagnostic aids, therapeutics, and laboratory procedures. The content outlines of the tests are presented. The formation of…

Based on the view that text-specific concept and vocabulary knowledge affect the processing and recall of text and that a measure of this knowledge might assist teachers in determining whether a reader possesses adequate background to successfully comprehend and recall a particular text, a study was conducted. Its purpose was to develop a measure…

The development of the City University of New York's writing assessment test is discussed in this paper. Its relationship to the total freshman skills assessment program, which also involves the assessment of minimal competencies in mathematics and reading, is related. The discussion of the test includes descriptions of the test development…

A live tailored achievement testing study was conducted to compare procedures based on the one- and three-parameter logistic models. Previous studies yielded inconclusive results because of the procedures by which item calibrations were linked and because of the item selection procedures. Using improved procedures, 83 college students were tested…

The Racial Attitudes and Perceptions Survey (RAPS) was developed to obtain information from black and white military personnel, including reports of the frequencies of specific discriminatory behaviors and the tension levels associated with each race. The instrument was evaluated in terms of its construct validity and its reliability. Attitudes…

Test questions were phrased according to different sentence structures in a study of the complexity level of items for 220 third-grade children. Both the sensitivity of wh-questions (who, what, where, etc.) as a dependent variable and differences between wh-questions eliciting subject and predicate nouns were investigated. Effects of paraphrase…

This is the final report of a research project. The goal of the project was to record a large collection of mathematical performances by students and to develop a system for analyzing these performances. The subjects observed included students in grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9 and three adult groups. Four specific results are reported: (1) a large…

Three methods of item selection were used to select sets of 38 items from a 50-item verbal analogies test and the resulting item sets were compared for internal consistency, standard errors of measurement, item difficulty, biserial item-test correlations, and relative efficiency. Three groups of 1,500 cases each were used for item selection. First…

Several measurement theorists have convincingly argued that methods of writing test questions, particularly for criterion-referenced tests, should be based on operationally defined rules. This study was designed to examine and further refine a method for objectively generating multiple-choice questions for prose instructional materials. Important…

Two concerns led to the development of the screening test which is described: (1) the present 28% rate of attrition of Navy female first enlistees is too high; and (2) attrition is expected to increase when a high school diploma is no longer required for women to enter the Navy. Thus, a screening instrument was needed which could be used…

Undergraduate students in a large tests and measurements class were assigned a series of projects directly related to course content: (1) divide the textbook and instructional content into topical sub-sections; (2) identify learning outcomes for each sub-section; (3) list course objectives--working in groups of 3-6 students; (4) revise…

REACTING TO A PAPER WRITTEN BY H. NED SEELYE (SEE "LANGUAGE LEARNING," VOLUME 16, NUMBER 1-2, 1966, PAGES 77-85), THE ARTICLE EXAMINES SOME OF THE QUESTIONS RAISED BY THE ATTEMPT TO ESTABLISH TESTS THAT WOULD ACCURATELY MEASURE THE ABILITY OF CULTURAL STRANGERS TO ADAPT TO A FOREIGN CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT. IN ORDER TO CLARIFY THE PURPOSES OF SUCH…