A social studies achievement test made up of items rewritten in simplified language was compared with a test containing the same items in their original form by administering the two tests to the entire 8th grade class of a suburban junior high school near Baltimore. The results showed only slightly higher scores for students taking the simplified…

The primary objective of this project was to provide a more detailed description along with "real time" information to the community of educational administration preparation programs in the State of New Jersey as to what are considered to be the critical elements, skills and competencies current Chief School Administrators (CSA) in the…

Web-based learning has been proposed as a convenient way to provide professional development experiences. Despite quantitative evidence that online instruction is equivalent to traditional methods (Russell, 2001), the efficiency of this approach has not been extensively studied among teachers. This case report describes learning in an online…

The purpose of this study was to improve both statistical and judgmental methods for detecting potentially biased test items in an attempt to examine the agreement between the results obtained with these methods. If greater agreement between methods can be achieved, test items can be more effectively screened using judgmental methods prior to…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether option weighting improved the internal consistency and intercorrelation of the subtests. The differential option-weighting scheme employed in this study is based on one devised by Guttman. The tests were first scored with Guttman-type weights and then with conventional correction-for-guessing…

Multiple-choice standardized achievement tests of English vocabulary and reading comprehension and of mathematics were administered to samples of 592 grade eight students and 615 grade five students. Two forms of each test unit were prepared. The control groups took forms containing items with four responses, while the experimental groups took…

An age-dependent answer-selection sequence of answers on multiple-choice tests suggested by previous studies was supported using statistical rather than clinical means. Results with 2,810 students aged 88 months through 241 months given a reading comprehension test twice during a 5-month interval support the systematically connected age-dependent…

This study examined scores from 133,906 operationally scored Test of English as a Foreign Language™ (TOEFL®) essays to determine whether the choice of composition medium has any impact on score quality for subgroups of test-takers. Results of analyses demonstrate that (a) scores assigned to word-processed essays are slightly more reliable than…

This paper traces developments in educational psychology and measurement that led to the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and the test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) and the application of educational measurement terms such as validity and reliability to testing. Use of a table of specifications for planning…

This study compares the effects of delivery medium (online vs. face-to-face) and facilitator content expertise on academic outcomes in a problem-based learning (PBL) course in anatomy for pre-health/medical majors. The content of online PBL sessions was examined to gain insight into the problem-solving process taking place in these situations.…

This is an illustration of the use of various measures in particular elements, including self-descriptive devices, all of which are designed to emphasize most precise measurement of potential, rather than already developed abilities and skills. See also TM 001 163-165 for further information on the job element method, and use of the J-Scale.…

Scientific literacy and authenticity have gained a lot of attention in the past few decades worldwide. The goal of the study was to develop various authentic assessments to investigate students' scientific literacy for corresponding to the new curriculum reform of Taiwan in 1997. In the process, whether ninth graders were able to apply school…

The validity and reliability of two techniques of assessing writing proficiency were compared in a sample of 300 South African students (in Standard 8) for whom English was a second language. The objective, multiple choice method was compared with a subjective, essay method. Students completed a Standard English Second Language Item Bank Test and…

This primer is an introduction to item response theory (also called item characteristic curve theory, or latent trait theory) as it is used most commonly--for scoring multiple choice achievement or aptitude tests. Written for the testing practitioner with minimum training in statistics and psychometrics, it presents and illustrates the basic…

The use of videotape tests is presented. Such tests enable the educator to assess student performance more directly than traditional paper and pencil tests. Test 1 was exploratory. Test 2 was designed to measure empathetic understanding. It contains 16 scenes, each about one minute long, which show five individuals in a group situation. The…