AT THE INDIANA UNIVERSITY REGIONAL CAMPUS AT FORT WAYNE, 171 FRESHMAN STUDIED A UNIT ON "STIMULUS AND RESPONSE" IN A MODIFIED FORM OF THE PROGRAMING STYLE CALLED "CONVERSATIONAL CHAINING," IN WHICH THE ONLY RESPONSE CONFIRMATION IS PROVIDED WITHIN THE NEXT FRAME IN THE PROGRAM. THERE WAS NO SPECIFIC EMPHASIS SUCH AS CAPITALIZATION, BUT ALWAYS AN…

Regulations and procedures for the operation of the Virginia General Educational Development (GED) Testing Program are provided. The GED is a means for measuring an individual's educational competency, particularly the major generalizations, ideas, and intellectual skills that are the outcome of four years of high school instruction. Emphasis is…

Certain modifications of a conventional test are proposed which force the item difficulty level to adjust automatically to the ability level of the examinee. The modified test is called a flexilevel test. Although different examinees take different sets of items, the scoring method provides comparable scores for all. Furthermore, the test is…

A need exists for the National Institute of Education (NIE) to extend the range of its concern with measurement into a number of new areas. While the measurement of basic cognitive abilities is well-advanced, accurate measures of affective and higher-order cognitive abilities are not generally available. Measurement could also be extended into…

It is hypothesized that children with hyperkinesis tend to repeat inappropriate behavior patterns more frequently than do other children. To assess this tendency to perseverate, a new scoring method using the Porteus Maze Test was devised. On a limited sample of children diagnosed as hyperkinetic and not hyperkinetic, analyses indicate that the…

This paper discusses some methodological, theoretical and physiological issues to be considered in the use of film tests in research relating to visual cognition and memory. One trouble spot in methodology is the use of a square data matrix with an insufficient number of observations in proportion to variables. A second methodological problem…

Within the context of a counterbalanced design, 63 female students were tested with a computerized Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and a group booklet mode of administration. State anxiety was measured before and after each testing session. The correlation between the computer-based MMPI scale scores and the booklet…

Confidence scored tests allow subjects to respond to the options on a multiple choice test by assigning probabilities to each of the item options. This paper describes an interactive FORTRAN computer program used for administering, scoring, and interpreting the results of confidence scored tests. (Author/JKS)

Authors are officials at the Education Department of the National Union of Teachers and have been monitoring the policies of LEAs concerning testing and assessment in schools. Here is their report. (Editor/RK)

Identifies general and specific skills for taking tests. Contends that students who use effective general test-taking skills improve their performance on standardized tests. (JDH)

Item response theory (IRT) is having a major impact on the field of testing. This special issue presents an introduction and seven papers concerning developments in IRT applications. Some important IRT research being conducted outside the United States is highlighted. (SLD)

Instructional alignment is the extent to which stimulus conditions match three instructional components. This paper demonstrates a new perspective in which instructional alignment generates larger effects in research and practice for less "cost" than other instructional constructs. (VM)

Learning disabled and mentally retarded elementary and secondary students (N=343) exhibited significant differences on scores of three tests designed to measure the same area of achievement. Results suggested that specific abilities of pupils interact with aspects of the test items. (CL)

Because test scores are ordinal not cordinal attributes, the average test score often is a misleading way to summarize the scores of a group of individuals. Similarly, correlation coefficients may be misleading summary measures of association between test scores. Proper, readily interpretable, summary statistics are developed from a theory of…

The authors provide information about test construction and testing practices in order to help parents and teachers to ask important and critical questions about them. Issues pertinent to the appropriate selection, use, and interpretation of tests are presented. (Author/CL)