An overview of the research needed on the new Test of Written English (TWE), a section of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), looks at research needs in the areas of test validity, test reliability, topic development, and equating. Suggested topics for study include: the uniqueness of the construct measured by the test, in…

This study compares the results of an indirect measure of writing ability, the Florida State Student Assessment Test, Part I (SSAT-I), and the Production Writing Assessment (PWA). Both instruments were administered to 10th graders in Dade County (Florida) during the spring of 1987. The SSAT-I is an untimed test containing a section indirectly…

The reliability of the Writing Skills Assessment Test (WSAT) given to all entering freshmen at the City University of New York (CUNY) is the subject of this monograph. The monograph states that although the WSAT is scored according to validated and widely-used holistic procedures, some CUNY faculty had expressed concern about aspects of the WSAT's…

A conventional verbal ability test and a Bayesian adaptive verbal ability test were compared using a variety of psychometric criteria. Tests were administered to 550 Marine recruits, half of whom received two 30-item alternate forms of a conventional test and half of whom received two 30-item alternate forms of a Bayesian adaptive test. Both types…

A study assessed the applicability of the American Institutes for Research (AIR) procedures' Performance-Against-Standard form for use in personnel evaluation by the Ohio Cooperative Extension Service. The study also compared relevant test construction approaches identified in the literature to those used in the AIR study in attempting to confirm…

The purpose of this paper is to report the research that took place during the development of the "ENRIGHT Diagnostic Inventory of Basic Arithmetic Skills." This is a criterion-referenced test designed to provide educators with information useful for changing instructional strategies based on known error patterns of students in grades 1 through 9.…

Intended for use by early childhood practitioners who select and use early childhood assessment instruments, this guide provides information needed to judge instrument appropriateness and technical quality. The guide focuses mainly on standardized, broadly available instruments. Criteria for selecting instruments include publication after 1979,…

In an assessment of the adequacy of the Gesell screening examination as a test instrument, a Gesell Screening Evaluation was given to 400 children semi-annually from their 4th to 6th year. The sample, which was stratified by parent occupation, included 40 girls and 40 boys at 5 age levels. The test battery corresponded with the Gesell Preschool…

The purpose of this paper is to compare the utility of the information yielded by the classical and latent trait psychometric models when they are used to examine the psychometric qualities of an instrument designed to assess school-related stress. The instrument, known as the School Situation Survey (SSS), is described, and efforts to determine…

Prompted by the increased use of behavior rating instruments in educational environments and evidence of confusion over the interpretation of labels designating behavior clusters, the present two-phase study analyzed 410 specific items contained in seven behavior rating instruments and investigated whether these items could be intuitively sorted…

This paper addresses the issue of whether four of the learning styles instruments currently available are of sufficient psychometric quality to warrant their continued use either for research or educational purposes. Four instruments, which purport to measure learning styles, were selected for review. Criteria for selection were based in part on…

UNIACT, a major component of the American College Testing (ACT) Assessment Program, is one of the first interest inventories to employ a new technique for ensuring sex fairness in the reporting of scores. UNIACT was constructed with the goal that distributions of career options suggested to males and females would be similar. It is intended to…

This paper reviews the literatuare on projective techniques of personality assessment and their use by school psychologists. Following a brief survey of the development of projective techniques, several of the most widely used techniques are briefly discussed, i.e., the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), the Childrens Apperception Test (CAT), the…

This manual makes accessible several widely used instruments for measuring perceptions of psychosocial characteristics of classroom environment among school students and teachers. Background information, scoring procedures, validation data, and preferred and short forms of the Learning Environment Inventory, My Class Inventory, Classroom…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the utility of out-of-level testing (OLT) when it is applied to the assessment of special education students with mild learning handicaps. This evaluation of OLT involved testing hypotheses related to: (1) the adequacy of vertical scaling, (2) the reliability and (3) the validity of OLT scores. Fifty-eight…