Discusses the changes in psychological testing and the rapidity of their development. Describes trends in the role of the test user, technical methodology of test construction, and interpretation of test scores. (Author)

Describes recordkeeping for the National Spanish Examinations by the Metropolitan New York Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP). The layout of census and attendance forms is described, and the use of a word processing or database program to help organize and utilize information obtained from those forms…

A court decision that a pioneering New York law illegally preempted federal law by forcing publication of standardized test material protected by federal copyright could undermine greater disclosure in standardized testing, but quick changes in testing practice are not expected. (MSE)

Levine's equations for random groups and unequally reliable tests can be used to equate two tests through performance on an anchor test. Levine's assumption of a parallelism requirement is not necessary; it is sufficient to assume only that the tests are congeneric, an assumption implicit in linear test equating. (SLD)

Differences between recommended sets of equal-interval response anchors derived from scaling techniques using magnitude estimations and Thurstone Case III pair-comparison treatment of complete ranks were compared. Differences in results for 205 undergraduates reflected differences in the samples as well as in the tasks and computational…

Discusses various methods and procedures for assessing depression in clients. Reviews eight clinician rating and client self-report measures of depression on the basis of their psychometric properties and applied pragmatic utility. (Author)

Alternate versions of the Western Personnel Test were administered via computer and in the standard paper and pencil format to two groups of adults (N=50). Results suggest that the two forms of administration yield comparable results, and that separate norms for the computer-administered version are not necessary. (TJH)

A distinction is made between statistics based on scientific theory and theory-free statistics. This distinction is discussed in the contexts of hypothesis testing, Bayesian inference, a priori planned contrasts, a new simple computational method, and alternative data interpretations. (TJH)

Examined relationship of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC), the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (Revised), (WISC-R), and the Woodcock-Johnson Psychoeducational Battery (W-JPB), Part Two, using children (N=34) with learning disabilities. Found more consistent relationships between WISC-R and W-JPB Achievement tests than…

Explores the two major pieces of federal legislation that make up the foundation for a national testing initiative: Goals 2000 and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Discusses the content of each of the legislative initiatives, how they interrelate, and who supports them. Suggests that the national testing movement has metamorphosed into…

In multigroup covariance structure analysis with structured means, the traditional latent selection model is formulated as a special case of phenotypic selection. Illustrations with real and simulated data demonstrate how one can test specific hypotheses concerning selection on latent variables. (SLD)

Examines documents and citations relating to literature of the Ortega Hypothesis, reviews citing behaviors and errors of individual citations, and includes analysis of the occurrences of secondary and tertiary citing. Findings show there is little evidence to prove that secondary and tertiary citing is not occurring and suggests that further…

Shortcomings of current testing policies have heightened interest in alternative assessment methods. Authentic assessments truly represent performance, evaluate against openly expressed standards, help students learn to evaluate themselves, and require public presentation and defense of their work. (SK)

Palmore's Facts on Aging Quiz in standard true-false format was completed by 180 sociology students, a revised multiple-choice version by 195 students. The multiple-choice test decreased guessing, had greater internal consistency and reliability, tended to have higher discriminatory power, and identified more specifically misconceptions about…

Implications of phase space functions for psychological assessment are examined in this third article of the special section. The ability to predict the future time course of variables and the strength of causal relationships can be enhanced if temporal, dynamic, and nonlinear characteristics of variables are considered. (SLD)