The 1973 statewide (Maryland) educational accountability plan, for which this report was compiled, called for the development and establishment of statewide and local goals in reading, writing, and mathematics; a comprehensive and uniform statewide testing program; procedures for collecting data on student, home, community, and school…

Assessment programs like the American College Test (ACT) and the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) continue to play an important role in the admission decisions of many colleges. In many cases, they also serve a meaningful counseling and guidance function for high schools and colleges. The data reported in this paper suggest that the two programs can…

This report lists various factors of psychological testing which might be more relevant and appropriate for elementary school age children in such areas as Appalachia. The areas covered are group individual testing, individual intelligence testing, achievement testing, special clinical testing, social maturity, and personality evaluation…

This paper reports findings of research done concerning the productivity of types of classroom reading instruction in a sample of New York State elementary classrooms. Data was gathered from approximately 5,800 fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students in five New York State school districts during the spring semester of the 1974-75 school year. The…

The accountability movement in American education has received great clamors of attention in the past few years. This movement, in turn, suggests the need for particular data to inform responsible decision-making; the need for assessment instruments which can address the question of what is learned; and the need for strengthening the existing…

Faced with a frustrating lack of ability to solve the problem of providing educational opportunities for inner city children, many have turned, in frustration and despair, to the creation of myths about the whole enterprise, including achievement testing. Three myths about educational achievement testing and inner city children that are addressed…

Project TALENT, a large scale, long range, longitudinal study, is designed primarily to provide insights into the characteristics and development of American adolescents. In order to compare trends in test results, a comprehensive battery of Psychological, educational, and personality measures were administered to participants in the 1960, 1970,…

The study was conducted to determine if there are differences in selected factors related to the educational and occupational plans of vocational agriculture students who plan to enter on-farm agricultural occupations, those who plan to enter off-farm agricultural occupations, and those who plan to enter non-agricultural occupations. The…

A number of strategies are described for adapting ability test items to individual differences in ability levels of testees. Each strategy consists of a different set of rules for selecting the sequence of test items to be administered to a given testee. Advantages and disadvantages of each strategy are discussed, and research issues unique to the…

Data was collected from school systems in order to examine their policy regarding the release of standardized achievement test scores to the public. Results indicated that larger schools were more likely than small schools to release scores. For those schools releasing scores, a breakdown was provided for the methods and statistical measures used.…

The basic education program designed by Method of Intellectual Development (MIND) Inc., was used with two samples of adults in an attempt to update their basic skills quickly and economically in a non-school environment. The two samples consisted of: 23 unemployed and underemployed males; and 24 females. Ages ranged from 17-24 years. The two…

Whether vocabulary and comprehension skills as measured by a content reading test were more related to achievement than the same skills as measured by general tests was investigated. The subjects were 140 high-school juniors. Also, whether or not there was a significant difference between high and low achievers in the skills measured was assessed…

Reading achievement of elementary school children in California has been measured by several separate studies, not all of which appear to present compatible results. This study of three assessments contained in the Miller-Unruh Report analyzes their purposes, methods, results, and recommendations in an effort to produce some way to arrive at an…

The broad purpose of this study was to investigate some ways of predicting the language arts achievement of kindergarten children in order that their academic needs more nearly may be met. The Metropolitan Readiness Test (given to 16 subjects at the end of kindergarten) and the Metropolitan Achievement Test, Primary I, the Purdue Perceptual Motor…

Student bodies in each of 2 Leflore County schools in rural Mississippi (1 school practically all Negro and the other mainly white) are described in terms of their academic achievement in principal subject matter areas. In both schools, pupils are enrolled from grades 1 through 12, and standardized tests were administered at selected grade levels.…