Places performance assessment in the context of high-stakes uses, describes underlying technologies, and outlines the history of performance testing from 210 B.C.E. to the present. Historical issues of fairness, efficiency, cost, and infrastructure influence contemporary efforts to use performance assessments in large-scale, high-stakes testing…

Presents three studies examining the psychometric properties of the Community Service Self-Efficacy Scale developed for program evaluation of service learning in college. The scale was constructed to assess an individual's confidence in his or her ability to make clinically significant contributions to the community through service. Reliability,…

The International English Language Testing System is described, including the test's underlying principles, design, administration, scoring, reliability, and interpretation. Some criticisms of the program are briefly discussed. (MSE)

The temporal stability and intertask consistency of an eighth-grade mathematics performance assessment and how task similarity affects the ability to generalize results of the assessments were studied with results from 101 eighth graders. Results support the suggestion that large-scale performance assessments be used with considerable caution…

Public education could be significantly improved if proponents of standards-based reform could join with critics of high-stakes testing (the "evil twin") and outlaw using such tests as sole indicators of student success. Authentic, standards-based reform is concerned with equity and quality, demands teacher collaboration, and addresses demands for…

Ten myths and countermyths about intelligence are explored. It is argued that the desire for simplicity and publicity has led psychologists and others writing about intelligence to take positions that cannot be justified by current theory or recent data. However defined, intelligence is but one aspect of being human. (SLD)

Two cause indicator models were formulated to link items of the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment--Short Form to the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test--Revised. These models were tested with data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (506 and 345 children), and a final model was developed. (SLD)

Interset and set-to-total correlations for the California Card Sorting Test were studied for 135 college students and 63 elementary school students. Although subsets were not equivalent, the generally good correlations between subset and total test scores indicated that use of the individual subsets as short forms is justified. (SLD)

Original data and other studies using the Positive Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (ATP-Q) show that the reliability and norms of the instrument appear stable and that the ATP-Q is inversely associated with negative affective states but unrelated to conditions such as medical condition not accompanied by psychological distress. (SLD)

Principal component analysis of responses of 173 teacher education students showed that students recognized 5 major functions for open-book examinations. They thought that open-book examinations reduced examination stress and enabled them to monitor their progress toward graduation more effectively. (SLD)

Investigated the capacity of the Pharmacy College Admissions Test (PCAT) to predict success in pharmacy school. Found demographic differences in PCAT scores, and that the PCAT used in combination with pre-pharmacy grade point average is meaningful in assessing applicants to pharmacy school; applicants with PCAT composite percentile scores below 40…

This article examines two kinds of problems associated with the English Language Arts test at the fourth-grade level in New York State: (1) problems that inhere in the test itself and (2) problems associated with its use. As for the test itself, three kinds of problems are analyzed: (1) the use of multiple-choice tasks to assess reading…

Existing research indicates that there is a disproportionate number of students with cultural and linguistic differences, English Language Learners (ELL), who are misidentified as learning disabled when their problems are due to cultural and/or linguistic differences. As a consequence, these students do not receive appropriate services. With the…

This study was designed to examine the attitudes of teachers and students in Swedish upper secondary schools in regard to the use of higher education scholastic aptitude test (SAT) scores in lieu of secondary school grades to gain entrance into higher education programs. Since 1991 applicants to higher education have been allowed to take the…

Professionals often seem to view guidelines, standards, and the like, not to mention legal mandates, as adding to their work load. It is argued that a widely promulgated set of test taker rights would actually make the work of personnel selection professionals easier. The California court case Soroka v. Dayton-Hudson Corporation, in which test…