The ABC Quality program, South Carolina's Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS), is a statewide system designed to improve the quality of early care and education services. Historically, two observation instruments are used for centers that elect to participate in the state's voluntary QRIS depending on the level of quality for which they…

It is argued that publishers of achievement tests, especially those who publish tests intended for use in many parts of the United States, are for the most part not in a position to obtain any decent evidence about the consequences of the uses that are made of their tests. What responsibilities and actions publishers can reasonably be expected to…

This paper was presented with other papers in a forum dealing with statewide testing programs. The primary purpose of the paper is to address practical considerations and methods of resolution for large districts or states who are planning on conducting large scale testing or assessment programs with criterion or performance referenced measures.…

In 1979-80, the Arkansas minimum competency tests were administered to a sample of 5,000 students in grades 3, 6, and 8. To determine how well test objectives matched the curriculum, their teachers estimated how many of the four items per objective a randomly selected student would answer correctly. Because chi square test comparisons of teacher…

Based on 18 months of extensive research and study, the New Mexico State Department of Education developed the Staff Accountability Plan to address the issue of teacher accountability and certification. One of the provisions of the plan (a written assessment of general and professional knowledge for initial certification) will be fulfilled by…

Three new indicators of psychometric quality for objectives-based statewide assessments are proposed. These measures provide indication of the stability of reported data on item and objectives mastery, the validity of assessment items for members of various cultural groups, and the convergent validity of prescribed objectives mastery scores. The…

Focusing on the problems of assessing the speaking skills of secondary school students, this paper provides one example of how those problems were addressed in the Massachusetts speaking assessment. The paper identifies four requirements for measures of speaking skills: (1) feasibility, (2) reliability, (3) validity, and (4) freedom from bias. The…

The Connecticut Teacher Assessment Center Project has, since 1986, been developing a semistructured interview in the area of mathematics to evaluate beginning teacher competence. The strategy for validation of the project's performance tests, Connecticut's reform initiatives, and implications of systematic validity for traditional psychometric…

A Teacher Survey was developed for administration to Illinois teachers whose students take the Illinois Inventory of Educational Progress (IIEP). The IIEP are the achievement tests of the state assessment program. The purposes of the Teacher Survey range from determination of a test's curricular validity to investigations of teachers' abilities to…

State Departments of Education are turning to the use of criterion referenced, as opposed to norm referenced, models for statewide assessment. The underlying assumption in this turn of events is that results generated by criterion referenced tests within the statewide assessment context permit the drawing of value inferences about the…

Starting in the late 1980s, two teams of researchers, well known for their criticism of standardized tests on equity and validity grounds, began attacking standardized testing on efficiency grounds as well, using cost-benefit analysis to do it. Their analyses are reviewed, and their conclusions discussed. The first team, Lorrie A. Shepard, Amelia…

The statewide teaching performance assessment instruments being used in Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida were examined. Forty-one reliability and validity studies regarding the instruments in use in each state were collected from state departments and universities. Georgia uses the Georgia Teacher Performance Assessment Instrument. North…

Statewide minimum competency testing programs have emphasized basic skills in reading, mathematics, and writing. However, continuing concerns are expressed in national reports about the level of achievement, particularly in mathematics and science, and increased testing has been suggested as a means of encouraging curriculum change and evaluating…

The use of confirmatory factor analytic procedures to examine the dimensionality of writing skills as measured by a large-scale direct writing test was illustrated. Internal construct validity evidence about the nature of writing skills measured by the test was provided. Data used were scores assigned by about 100 trained professional raters on a…

Placement testing programs are generally designed to place students into courses for which they are best prepared, to reduce administrative costs due to students dropping and adding courses because of poor placement decisions, and to provide faculty with information concerning students' levels of preparation well in advance of the first day of…