Educators have many decisions to make and it's important that they have the right data to inform those decisions and access to questionnaires that can gather that data. This guide, developed by REL Central and based on work done through separate projects with the Wyoming Office of Public Instruction and the Nebraska Department of Education,…

Packed with new topics that reflect today's challenges, the Sixth Edition of the bestselling "How to Conduct Surveys" guides readers through the process of developing their own rigorous surveys and evaluating the credibility and transparency of surveys created by others. Offering practical, step-by-step advice and written in the same…

This guide is designed to help adult educators and administrators better understand the content of the GED® test. This guide is tailored to each test subject and highlights the test's item types, assessment targets, and guidelines for how items will be scored. This 2016 edition has been updated to include the most recent information about the…

The goal for selecting the released set of test items was to have approximately 25% of each of the full item sets for mathematics content knowledge (MCK) and mathematics pedagogical content knowledge (MPCK) that would represent the full range of difficulty, content, and item format used in the TEDS-M study. The initial step in the selection was to…

This article describes the 2-5-8 Assessment Plan, an assessment process based on Bloom's taxonomy that allows students to choose test items to complete. Test items are given 2, 5, or 8 points depending on difficulty and students must choose any assignments that total ten points. Grading the assessments is discussed. (Contains one reference.) (CR)

The Student-Problem (S-P) methodology is described using an example of 24 students on a test of 44 items. Information based on the students' test score and the modified caution index is put to diagnostic use. A modification of the S-P methodology is applied to domain-referenced testing. (Author/CM)

It is important that teachers test not only knowledge, but also comprehension, application, synthesis, and evaluation. Several suggestions for test items in physical education are presented. (CJ)

Discussion of computer-based testing (CBT) focuses on the development of the database format question (DFQ) which allows the user to build up a more complex answer than multiple choice by selecting items from a database presented on the computer screen. Programing is explained and an evaluation of DFQ is included. (Seven references) (LRW)

Outlines an oral interview format and scoring system for use with foreign language students during their first and second semesters of language study. (EKN)

An approach to testing medical students' clinical decision-making skills identifies key features (critical steps in resolution of a clinical problem) and presents a clinical case scenario followed by questions focusing on those key features. Key-feature problems provide flexibility on issues of question format, multiple responses to questions, and…

The evaluation tools written by teachers are rarely valid or reliable. One teaching aid that can help in the creation of an effective evaluation instrument is called a test map. A test map is a systematic method to consider variables that are important in the construction of the format of a test. Five variables that are discussed in the test…

Since 1979, New York State has been working on an instrument to evaluate elementary school students' writing ability. Several thousand writing samples were obtained and were analyzed, by a test development committee consisting of elementary school teachers, qualitatively within each grade as high, average, and low, and in terms of organization and…

Reviews seven commercially produced test generator programs appropriate for use by classroom teachers or individual instructors and identifies item construction and test formatting features that facilitate test design and delivery. Test generator programs and their manufacturers are listed. (MBR)

Intended as a guide for college and secondary school educators involved in establishing institutional policy or providing students with academic counseling, this booklet presents basic information about the wide variety of English composition and literature examinations offered by College Board programs. It begins with a description of the role…

This paper describes the characteristics of the Minimum Skills Diagnostic Tests (MSDTs) components of the statewide testing program in North Carolina. The MSDTs' validity, method for deriving test scores, reliability and other statistics, test content, and test norms are discussed. These tests--given in grades 3, 6, and 8--assess an individual's…