Six tips for increasing student problem-solving skills are offered in this teacher fact sheet. Puzzles and simulations matched to student mental maturity and general knowledge are recommended as activities for helping students think more flexibly and practice higher order thinking skills. In addition, four suggestions are given for controlling…

When individuals are given tests that are too hard or too easy, the resulting scores are likely to be poor estimates of their performance. To get valid and accurate test scores that provide meaningful results, one should use functional-level testing (FLT). FLT is the practice of administering to an individual a version of a test with a difficulty…

Procedures for conducting functional level testing have been available for use by practitioners for some time. However, the Title I Evaluation and Reporting System (TIERS), developed in response to the educational amendments of 1974 to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), has provided the impetus for widespread adoption of this…

Discusses five environmental dimensions (hardness/softness, open/closed, simple/complex, intrusion/seclusion, and high mobility/low mobility) that affect the experiences of children in day-care centers, demonstrating how to consider these dimensions in solving typical problems in child care settings. (MDM)

A study was undertaken to develop guidelines for the interpretation of the parameters of three multidimensional item response theory models and to determine the relationship between the parameters and traditional concepts of item difficulty and discrimination. The three models considered were multidimensional extensions of the one-, two-, and…

Of the four language skills, reading is probably tested most often, and it may seem to be the easiest to test. However, testing reading proficiency has its difficulties, and the test constructor must be aware of several issues. Reading involves a number of skills, and the number and complexity of these must be recognized. Choosing the text to test…

In examining why performance scores on writing tests so often fail to improve in neat positive intervals for individuals and groups, testers have sought the answer in differences in test conditions on progressive retestings. Two other sources of performance variation are possible: the U-shaped learning curve or phenomenon of apparent regression…

For Title I evaluations, it may be appropriate to test out-of-level; that is, to override publisher's recommendations concerning the difficulty, length, and content appropriate for a particular grade. It is seldom necessary, however, to move more than one grade down. If the mean is substantially higher than the median, then some pupils will have…

Greater knowledge about the practical application of Rasch technology can help in avoiding misapplications and confusions in testing programs. Equal interval curriculum-based scaling makes possible the following improvements in measuring basic skills achievement by enabling testing programs to: (1) individualize the difficulty level of…