One way for agencies to reduce fiscal stress is to minimize employee turnover. A project undertaken by San Bernardino County (California) to reduce employee turnover through the development, validation, and use of a non-traditional worker selection instrument (biographical inventory) is described. This project was aimed at the specific…

To determine whether the Posner task, which measures the speed at which information is retrieved from the long term memory, improves prediction of reading comprehension, 121 students from reading and study skills and teacher education courses were administered the Posner task and listening comprehension, reading comprehension, and SAT verbal…

This study examined the statistical and institutional influences on the prediction of first-year college grades. The sources of information were the Validity Study Services file which summarizes the results of College Board validity studies and the College Handbook file which includes data about college characteristics. The criterion was the size…

This report describes technical plans and progress during the second year (Fiscal Year 1984) of work on the U.S. Army's Project A: "Improving the Selection, Classification, and Utilization of Army Enlisted Personnel." Project A is a long-range research program developed by the Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social…

The Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery is a wide-range comprehensive set of individually administered tests, with norms provided from the preschool to the geriatric level. Part one contains twelve subtests of academic ability and aptitude. Part two contains ten subtests measuring academic achievement. The final section measures scholastic…

The Purdue Interest Questionnaire (PIQ), a 264-item Likert-type scale, was developed to assist engineering students in their career planning. The six engineering scales identify specialized fields: aeronautical, chemical, civil, electrical, industrial, or mechanical. For students planning to transfer out of engineering, four scales identify…

The potential usefulness of computerized tests for supplementing paper-and-pencil measures for predicting job performance abilities was the objective of a series of studies. This report covers the initial test development and analysis research. Eight computerized tests were constructed to measure five personal attributes identified in previous…

Six current issues in the use of tests are examined in this paper. Are the tests used in education valid? In general and to a reasonably satisfactory extent they are. Is the emphasis these tests place on cognitive achievements a serious limitation? Because of the basic and pervasive role of cognition in human affairs, and in the absence of any…

An elementary survey of item characteristic curve theory, centered around the problems of individualized (tailored) testing, is presented. Following the introduction, discussions are provided of the following: Test Theory for Itemized Tests; The Guttman Scale; Item Characteristic Curve Theory; An Alternative Model; Specialization, Application, and…

The Sliding Person Test (SPERT) is a nonverbal measure of self-ideal discrepancy. The original test was a wooden manipulative which Joseph S. Karmos designed in order to pursue the 1962 conclusions of John Shlien, that even at a high level of abstraction, self-esteem is not without and it is more related to the unique and personal items which an…

A study compared a Modified Area Skill Survey (MASS) with a Modified Industry/Occupation Matrix (MIOM) method of projecting manpower demand. The comparison was made with regard to the bias and precision of the estimates of the two projection methods on populations of varying size. To achieve the comparison, each method was applied to the same…

This report was written to provide guidance in the development and evaluation of alternative instructional approaches that hold promise of improving instructional effectiveness. The main focus of the report is on how to identify and test interactive relationships between individual differences among learners and instructional conditions or…

The sample for this study included 496 students admitted to a large midwestern university through the special admissions program. Validity coefficients of the Descriptive Tests of Language Skills (DTLS) subtests, the Academic Tests of the ACT Assessment Program (ACT), and high school percentile rank were calculated with cumulative grade point…

The findings from content studies of three Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Advanced Tests: Biology, Literature in English, and Political Science were reported. The studies were designed to indicate the degree to which content specified for and included in test forms for these fields is representative of the content actually taught in the…

THIS REPORT DESCRIBES THE INITIAL VALIDATION OF PERFORMANCE TESTS OF TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS--USING PUPIL GAINS AS THE CRITERION OF EFFECTIVENESS--AND THE STEPS TAKEN IN RECOGNITION OF THE PROPRIETY OF SUCH MEASURES ONLY IF ALL TEACHERS ARE TEACHING FOR THE SAME OBJECTIVES. AS A FIRST STEP, IT WAS HYPOTHESIZED THAT A VALID PERFORMANCE TEST OF…