Seven separate reports survey the literature and current thinking in the following topic areas: optimum school and class sizes, organization of schools into appropriate grade-level groups, the benefits and disadvantages of ability grouping, the decline in student achievement as measured by standardized tests, the expansion of kindergarten…

Recent comprehensive analyses such as those by Harnishfeger and Wiley (1975) and Zajonc (1976) indicate the existence of a national and international downward trend in achievement and intelligence test scores. An analysis of the achievement and intelligence test scores in a small, upper middle class, New Jersey elementary school district showed an…

The Fall, 1974 South Carolina Statewide Testing Program was administered to nearly all of South Carolina's fourth and seventh grade students and a sample of ninth and eleventh grade students participated in the testing program. There were 49,068 fourth graders, about 98 percent, and 53,662 seventh graders, about 99 percent, tested. A…

In the late spring of 1972, the Chancellor's Office agreed to support a summer study to be undertaken by a committee of the California English Council, to investigate equivalency testing in the area of English and to recommend an appropriate program for use by the California State University and Colleges. This report is the result of that study:…

Since the 1974 California State University and Colleges Freshman English Equivalency Examination was a repeat of the 1973 examination, the report contained in this document should be viewed as a supplement to the 1973 report. The test was administered in May 1974 to 3,639 students with 1,036 receiving proficiency credit. Once again, it consisted…

A sizable representative subsample of the standardization group for the Metropolitan Achievement Tests participated in both the Fall and Spring standardization programs. Fall and Spring test records were matched for all such pupils and Fall-Spring "growth expectancies" were derived. Additionally, the sample was split into three subgroups…

During the past few years the problem of bias in testing has become an increasingly important issue. In most research, bias refers to the fair use of tests and has thus been defined in terms of an outside criterion measure of the performance being predicted by the test. Recently however, there has been growing interest in assessing bias when such…

The Sodus 1972 Summer Migrant Program entailed many facets to project learning experiences for the migrant of all ages. Its major goal was widening the migrants' experiences so that they might have more control over their own destiny. The 4 major phases to the Sodus Program's operation included the day care center for infants; the Summer Migrant…

In preparation for evaluation of programed spelling instruction, a grade 5 spelling program was designed, teachers were given special training, and an educational motivation scale was developed. Of the three subject groups used to carry out the investigation--(1) control, taught by the conventional method; (2) experimental, taught by programed…

The Cooperative Reading Project's purpose was to examine the relative effectiveness of three approaches to the teaching of beginning reading and the effectiveness of oral stimulation. This monograph reports the results of the last year of the project. The experimental reading treatments were: (1) the Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA), (2) the Words…

This research review discusses the use of traditional psychometric devices to predict an individual's academic performance, and to determine his admittance into a particular curriculum, particularly in today's open-door, comprehensive, community-junior college. To begin with, most reported uses of the typical achievement or aptitude test appear to…

This research was concerned with the applicability of a hierarchically-ordered test of achievement to the diagnosis and assessment of listening skills and reading skills. The results of a listening and reading achievement test which had been administered to 1,186 students in grades 2, 5, 8, and 11 were evaluated on a pass-fail basis for each skill…

Similar results were obtained here to those reported in TM 000 052: Random and chronological item arrangements yielded equivalent scores; the cognitive tests were again limited predictors of posttest achievement; and there was no consistent pattern as to the learning curve providing the test fit for all students, even though these monitors…

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of three methods of teaching diagnostic problem-solving (troubleshooting) to automotive students. The sample consisted of 45 community college students enrolled in automotive courses. Initially, all students received a presentation on ignition principles, and the Otis Mental Ability Test…

This report describes an attempt to revise and pilot-test an achievement quiz, a background information form, and an attitude inventory considered inadequate when used at the Summer (1968) Institute on Evaluation at the University of Illinois. In the original achievement quiz, most items tested recall or information and few tested the student's…