Implications of court interpretations of job analysis as a basis for testing are assessed for teacher certification tests. Cases reviewed address the 1978 "Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures," the fourteenth amendment, Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and content validity issues. (TJH)

Examined the possibility that individuals may confound measures of temperament and behavior problems because of the conceptual overlap between the measures. The psychologists involved in the study considered temperament items to be better measures of temperament than of behavior problems. (Author/BB)

This study established content validity and reliability for the Infant Behavioral Summarized Evaluation, a rating scale for young children with autism. Analysis of videotapes for 89 children (ages 6-48 months) revealed a significant group of 19 items, including characteristic early autistic behaviors and some less commonly described (such as…

The task inventory approach is commonly used in job analysis for establishing content validity evidence supporting the use and interpretation of licensure and certification examinations. Although the results of a task inventory survey provide job task-related information that can be used as a reliable and valid source for test development, it is…

A discussion of language testing in the context of a program in English for Special Purposes (ESP) focuses on the lack of "fit" between the two areas and makes some recommendations for improvement. It begins with overviews of recent trends in testing and recent issues in ESP. Overlap is seen in two areas: construct and content validity. It is…

This paper discusses and describes an industry-based process for the design and development of criterion-referenced tests in vocational-technical subject areas to support vocational program evaluations. The following topics are covered in the paper: (1) use of criterion-referenced tests; (2) test design; (3) preparation of test materials; and (4)…

The content validity of four reading achievement tests was evaluated with respect to third and fourth grade levels of the Pathfinder Allyn and Bacon Reading Program, using 29 third and 34 fourth graders. Instruments evaluated included subtests of the California Achievement Tests, Metropolitan Achievement Tests, Peabody Individual Achievement Test,…

This study, involving 20 children (ages 4-11) with severe hearing impairments, affirmed the content validity of the Clark-Madison Test of Oral Language as a measure of nonwritten expressive language with hearing-impaired children. Performance comparison with hearing individuals revealed a different profile of strengths and weaknesses than did…

A study involving 234 Texas college students was undertaken to develop and test the validity and reliability of an instrument designed to measure college students' attitudes toward alcohol. Special attention was given to the content and construct validity of the instrument. Subjects ranged in age from 18 to 24 years. The mapping sentence served as…

With increasing reliance being placed on the results of their surveys, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) recognized a need for these survey results to be valid and reliable. As part of the work of the Statistical Analysis Group in Education (SAGE), an effort was undertaken to investigate validity and reliability in survey…

Early National Teacher Examinations test-appraisal studies focused only on the extent to which the content covered on a test matched the content of teacher education curricula. Recently, there has been a shift in emphasis from adequacy-of-preparation, which is now seen by many as irrelevant to establishing the appropriateness of a teacher…

The development and tryout of an instrument designed to measure college students' attitudes toward alcohol demonstrate the utility of Guttman's facet analysis for developing and validating instruments. Findings from the survey, administered to 1,049 students, support the construct validity of the instrument. (SLD)

Testing and assessment in English-for-Academic-purposes (EAP) contexts has traditionally been carried out as a needs analysis of learners or a content analysis of courses. This article reassesses this approach to the development and validation of EAP tests on the basis of a theoretical model and recent research into content specificity. (VWL)

The objectives of this study were: (1) to examine the psychometric properties of the Assessment of Life Habits (LIFE-H) for children; and (2) to draw a profile of the level of participation among children of 5 to 13 years of age with various impairments. The research team adapted the adult version of the LIFE-H in order to render it more…

The "Social-Communication Assessment Tool" (S-CAT) was created as a direct observation instrument to quantify specific social and communication deficits of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) within educational settings. In this pilot study, the instrument's content validity and interrater reliability were investigated to determine the…