The use of psychological and educational tests in World War I led to their adoption in schools for testing intelligence and achievement in order to classify students academically according to a national norm. After World War II, rapid changes in occupational and social structure demanded the education and identification of students for employment.…

The final report describes a project investigating the utility of dynamic assessment in measuring the cognitive functioning and learning characteristics of children with specific learning disabilities. Subjects were 229 fourth and fifth grade children with 75 of these diagnosed as children with specific learning disabilities. Measures of cognitive…

This document is a book review of "Bias in Mental Testing" by Arthur R. Jensen. Jensen discusses intelligence as a phenotypic construct. The problem of ethnic differences in phenotypic intelligence is emotionally charged, which makes rational consideration of the issues difficult. The reviewer disagrees with the author's predisposition…

This paper is an overview of some points made at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association in April of 1987. Gender effects were computed on 82 nationally standardized tests designed to determine precocity among youth. The effect sizes ranged from a magnitude of 0.50 (favoring females) for spelling in grade 12 on the…

The paper reviews issues in the diagnosis and treatment of language disorders in black exceptional children. The controversy over language characteristics of the urban black child is examined, followed by a review of studies citing the linguistic and cultural bias of many tests used for diagnosis. Difficulties with the use of the System of…

This report examines the state of the art in assessing bilingual and/or multicultural students and asserts that dramatic improvements in assessment practices cannot be made within the context of the existing medical model. It is noted that existing assessment processes rely upon administration of technically-suspect norm-referenced measures to…

A total of 102 Spanish-speaking and 104 English-speaking preschool 4-year-old pupils were individually administered the Spanish and English versions of the Cooperative Preschool Inventory (CPI) to examine item responses for possible bias. Miminum logit chi-square regression was applied to each of the 30 items of the CPI verbal scale. Each of the…

This study discusses latent trait theory applications to test item bias methodology. A real data set is used in describing the rationale and application of the Rasch probabilistic model item calibrations across various ethnic group populations. A high school graduation proficiency test covering reading comprehension, writing mechanics, and…

Chicanos have been limited in their educational opportunities, as evidenced by their underrepresentation in occupations and professions requiring extended education. It is proposed that intelligence testing is one part of an educational ideology that ascribes the Chicano's unequal educational existence to the group's inability to function…

Fair, valid, and reliable measurement of dependent variables is a concern in personnel evaluation studies. Performance tests, that is, job or work sample tests, situational tests, and job learning or trainability tests, are being used with increasing frequency as measurement techniques capable of meeting these needs. The three categories of…

This self study guide attempts through a series of questions to call the reader's attention to possible sources of bias in the comprehensive assessment procedure. Beginning when someone considers the possibility that a child has an educational handicap, the questions move through preparation and assessment, scoring, interpretation, report writing…

Three areas of concern related to test bias and validity should be considered during the revision of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Tests. The first area concerns the sources and consequences of test bias. Five sources of bias have been identified: numerical bias, role bias, status bias, stereotypic bias, and familiarity bias. The…

The self concepts of multiethnic Spanish speaking children were measured using a Spanish translation of the Self Appraisal Inventory, Primary Level, developed by the Instructional Objectives Exchange in Los Angeles, in cooperation with the Elementary Secondary Education Act Title III programs throughout the United States. The test was administered…

A test was constructed which would evoke racial preferences, and 72 black and 55 white 10th-graders were individually tested by two black and two white test givers. There was a distinct black as opposed to a distinct white response to the test items; however, the races of the test givers did not influence the way the subjects responded to any of…

The Federal Service Entrance Examination (FSEE) is one of the competitive examinations used to screen junior level applicants for managerial, technical, and professional occupations in some 50 U. S. Government agencies. It consists of 95 objective test questions designed to measure the applicant's vocabulary, reading comprehension, knowledge of…