The Educational Sign Skills Evaluation (ESSE) was developed to provide a means of identifying the dominant signing style of an individual and to provide feedback on areas of strength and areas in need of improvement. It provides an overall expressive skills rating as well as information on the type, level, and degree of understanding demonstrated…

This handbook has been prepared to address one specific problem: How can the techniques of program evaluation be effectively applied to produce useful information about the operations and impact of moral education programs in secondary schools? The handbook is divided into five chapters. The introductory chapter describes the background and…

The basic measurement topics of reliability, validity, and norms as they apply to the major norm-referenced cognitive and affective instruments in economics education are discussed to provide researchers with a framework for judging technical quality. Because the topic of measurement is neglected or given improper treatment in much research work…

We describe the item modeling development and evaluation process as applied to a quantitative assessment with high-stakes outcomes. In addition to expediting the item-creation process, a model-based approach may reduce pretesting costs, if the difficulty and discrimination of model-generated items may be predicted to a predefined level of…

This study was undertaken to shed light on problems concerning the construction and use of a common test battery for various South African population groups. Specifically, the psychometric suitability for use with Indian and Black pupils, of the Junior Aptitude Tests (JAT), which were standardized for White pupils in Standard 7 was studied. The…

This literature review and annotated bibliography on student evaluations of teacher performance begins by reviewing the issues involved and the results of relevant research. The introductory section indicates that student evaluations of teaching effectiveness are commonly solicited in Ontario postsecondary institutions as diagnostic feedback to…

The empirical validity of generalizability theory was investigated by applying two three-facet designs to data obtained in 1988 from administration of the Scientific Thinking and Research Skill Test (STRST). The decision validity of the STRST was also examined. Subjects were 125 fifth-grade and 125 sixth-grade students who were administered the…

Mental health clinical services research has emphasized the urgency of developing new psychometric instruments for non-biased psychological assessment of minority and non-minority children of diverse cultural groups in the United States. Background multicultural standardization and validation information is presented for Tell-Me-A-Story (TEMAS)--a…

Reading skills are crucial to students learning and using English as a second language for academic purposes. Teachers can construct valid reading tests if they approach the task with care and focus on the test's ability to measure construct rather than face validity. In reading tests, the crucial elements of test design affecting validity are (1)…

During the last 20 years, the relationship between reading instruction and assessment has been framed by the logic of mastery learning. The ultimate goal of mastery learning is assuring a given achievement outcome across students by varying input characteristics such as the amount and kind of instruction and practice, or the attention paid to…

The School Effectiveness Structural Components Inventory (SESCI) was designed to assess structural elements in a school environment that contribute to effectiveness. The preliminary validation took place in 12 elementary schools in or near a large metropolitan school district. The schools were classified by overall school socioeconomic status, as…

Issues in designing valid tests for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are discussed. Test scores are often provided without any information on the nature of the tasks represented. Because test domains are defined by individual item writers, the generalizability between tests and items is suspect. While typical content…

To alleviate the possibility that Florida's College Level Academic Skills Test (CLAST) is biased against non-native English speakers because of its time limits, additional time was allowed for some samples. CLAST, designed to measure communicative and computational competence in college sophomores, has four subtests: reading, writing, computation,…

This examiner's manual accompanies the Learning Style Profile (LSP), which measures cognitive skills as well as affective and environmental preferences. Charles Letteri's General Operations Model was accepted as the prototype for relating learning styles to cognitive information processing. The LSP was developed from 1983 to 1986; several versions…

The Florida Council on Educational Management (FCEM), a 17-member council appointed by the Governor, Senate, and House of Representatives, is central to the present control of public school management in Florida. The duties of the FCEM are to identify: (1) relevant management competencies of school managers; (2) standards and procedures for…