This edition covers the basics of screening used to identify which children may have learning problems or disabilities. It offers advice for selecting an appropriate screening instrument and for setting up a screening program. The book contains reviews of current developmental screens, plus an entirely new annotated bibliography. For the first…

This document reviews 49 assessment measures that were designed for, or could be used with, pre-school children between the ages of three and five. The assessments have been classified into the following categories: (1) cognitive skills, (2) language, (3) social adjustment and behavior, (4) physical skills, (5) developmental and clinical measures,…

THE PURPOSES OF THIS PILOT PROJECT WERE (1) TO ATTEMPT TO EVALUATE THE EFFECT OF THE LOCAL PROGRAM ON BOTH INDIVIDUAL CHILDREN AND THE GROUP AND (2) TO INVESTIGATE THE SENSITIVITY OF THE TEST INSTRUMENTS EMPLOYED IN EVALUATING SUCH A PROGRAM. SIXTY-ONE CHILDREN WERE ENROLLED IN THE LOCAL HEADSTART PROGRAM AND WERE ADMINISTERED THE STANFORD-BINET,…

An advisory committee representing counselors, curriculum specialists, students, teachers, and community members should participate in selecting standardized tests for school districts. These steps should be followed: (1) identify test purpose in relation to needs and objectives--diagnosis, placement, career guidance, program evaluation; (2)…

Developmental psychologists have not traditionally documented the psychometric properties of their observational instruments, partly because such concepts as reliability and validity are associated mainly with paper-and-pencil tests. A multitrait-multimethod correlation matrix (MTMM) was presented as a useful method for the psychometric evaluation…

This volume was developed to enable local program personnel to determine the appropriateness of a test in relation to a child. No endorsements are made. For 68 preschool tests, the following information is presented when available: title, whether the test is for screening or verification, bibliographic information, descriptive information,…

The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is evaluated using a unified view of test validity that requires that validity be considered from an approach requiring many sources of corroboration. A review of available literature suggests insufficient evidence to support the tenets and claims about the utility of the MBTI. (SLD)

This paper discusses the use of assessment instruments at the preschool level and systematically reviews several measurement instruments used with young children. The first section briefly discusses the selection of educational objectives, consideration of alternative methods of collecting information about children, the selection of a specific…

For Title I evaluations, it may be appropriate to test out-of-level; that is, to override publisher's recommendations concerning the difficulty, length, and content appropriate for a particular grade. It is seldom necessary, however, to move more than one grade down. If the mean is substantially higher than the median, then some pupils will have…

Three methods of item selection were used to select sets of 38 items from a 50-item verbal analogies test and the resulting item sets were compared for internal consistency, standard errors of measurement, item difficulty, biserial item-test correlations, and relative efficiency. Three groups of 1,500 cases each were used for item selection. First…

REACTING TO A PAPER WRITTEN BY H. NED SEELYE (SEE "LANGUAGE LEARNING," VOLUME 16, NUMBER 1-2, 1966, PAGES 77-85), THE ARTICLE EXAMINES SOME OF THE QUESTIONS RAISED BY THE ATTEMPT TO ESTABLISH TESTS THAT WOULD ACCURATELY MEASURE THE ABILITY OF CULTURAL STRANGERS TO ADAPT TO A FOREIGN CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT. IN ORDER TO CLARIFY THE PURPOSES OF SUCH…

Because of the developmental characteristics of young children, the potential user of tests for educational evaluation needs to be keenly alert to the kinds of decisions which can be made on the basis of testing and to the limitations of testing when young children serve as subjects. The choice of a test to be used will depend on the type of…

Articles in this series on testing and evaluation specifically address the use of tests to assess and improve educational status; achievement test selection; and trend toward increased use of coaching materials to improve test performance. Professional literature on educational measurement is reviewed. (MBR)

Philosophical, technical, and practical considerations in selecting and evaluating educational tests for exceptional children are discussed. The following major technical considerations are addressed: validity, reliability, sensitivity, appropriateness, objectivity, and feasibility. (SEW)

Each spring, the New York City Public Schools conduct evaluations of first-graders to determine which students are in need of remedial reading and mathematics programs. A new measure was designed to be more reliable than the multiple-choice, standardized tests used previously. A checklist of 20 items relating to language arts, reading, and…