The present social and political climate is marked by an increasing appreciation of human diversity and of society's need to accommodate such diversity. The social context for testing is thus fundamentally different from that in which standardized testing developed. Testing should now be more concerned with facilitating equal opportunity.…

The reviewed book analyzes many facets of the testing enterprise from a sociocultural perspective, emphasizing the power motive of test givers. Part I on Authenticity Tests discusses the practice of using tests to determine innocence, guilt, and honesty with regard to culturally important behaviors. Part II addresses the use of ability tests for…

Following a critique of so-called educational testing, this article examines three "educationally noteworthy school testing programs"--those of Portland, Oregon; Orange County, Florida; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and one noteworthy school with no standardized testing: the Prospect School in Bennington, Vermont. Derives some broad…

Orlando and Thissen (2000, 2003) proposed an item-fit index, S-X[superscript 2], for dichotomous item response theory (IRT) models, which has performed better than traditional item-fit statistics such as Yen's (1981) Q[subscript 1] and McKinley and Mill's (1985) G[superscript 2]. This study extends the utility of S-X[superscript 2] to polytomous…

This article reports on a new study which concludes that teachers entering the profession today have higher academic qualifications than their counterparts a decade ago. The report, released this week by the Educational Testing Service, says the finding bodes well for greater student learning because of the evidence that teachers' academic ability…

Three papers are included in this document. The first, "An Introduction to the Problem of Test User Qualifications," by Kevin L. Moreland, is a short history of the American Psychological Association (APA)/American Educational Research Association (AERA)/National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) Working Group on Test User…

FOR THIS RESEARCH, A TEST WAS SAID TO BE BIASED FOR MEMBERS OF A SUBGROUP OF THE POPULATION IF, IN THE PREDICTION OF A CRITERION FOR WHICH THE TEST WAS DESIGNED, CONSISTENT NONZERO ERRORS OF PREDICTION ARE MADE FOR MEMBERS OF THE SUBGROUP. SAMPLES OF NEGRO AND WHITE STUDENTS FROM THREE INTEGRATED COLLEGES WERE STUDIED. IN THE TWO EASTERN COLLEGES,…

The purpose of this essay is to describe the principles of educational measurement proposed by B. Wood during the 1920s in his dissertation, written under the direction of E. L. Thorndike, and later published as "Measurement in Higher Education" (1923). These principles were selected because they illustrate one of the earliest and most complete…

Since 1960, an increasing number of books have been written on the theme of test-taking. Prior to that time, such information was found primarily in books concerned with learning and studying. Thirty-five referecnes related to test-taking are described in chronological order beginning with the most recent publication data. (DE)

Student test scores are increasingly used to judge the competence of the educational enterprise. Exaggeration of scores is the result of directing attention away from the individual student achievement to the average scores of schools, districts, and states. Implications and recommendations are discussed. (BJV)

This study provides an objective look at the education policies adopted by the State of Arizona since 2000, describes participants in the policy-making process, and identifies policy options for the future. The framework of the study uses a typology of educational policies with seven categories: school building and facilities, curriculum…

Since the passage of the first Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965, increasing reading achievement for all students has been a focus for our nation. Unfortunately, our country still has over 30 million citizens who are illiterate (Mukherjee, 2007). One of the challenges for schools is to accurately identify students in need of early…

A problem exists in grading practices accurately measuring student achievement. Both students' academic achievements and nonacademic factors, such as effort, homework completion, and behaviors continue to factor into grades. This combination can lead to inaccurate representation of true academic ability, rendering a grade useless. While…

This quasi-experimental study measured the effectiveness of a locally created summer Algebra readiness program in a large suburban high school district in New Jersey. Incoming ninth grade students who were not ready for high school algebra were invited to participate in the summer program. The program was designed to provide access to more…