An overview of four papers on useful future directions for psychometric research is provided. The papers were drawn from American Psychological Association symposia; they cover the nature of general intelligence, item bias and selection, cut scores, equating problems, computer-adaptive testing, and individual and group achievement measurement.…

Conducted study to examine whether practitioners err in administering and scoring Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R). Obtained WAIS-R protocols from 50 randomly selected psychological folders in records of 1 school district. Found that practitioners committed errors on all 50 protocols. Errors on 27 of 50 protocols were sufficient…

Reviews methods for testing whether two or more correlation matrices differ from each other. Illustrates methods for evaluating the similarities of two independent correlation matrices, such as those obtained from boys and girls, and two dependent correlation matrices, such as those obtained in longitudinal research that uses multiple measures.…

Findings reveal that memory retrieval at six months of age is highly specific to the setting in which the memory is acquired. This suggests that infants learn what events are associated with what places before they are able to locomote independently and acquire a spatiotemporal map of the relations between those places. (RH)

Reviews Peabody Individual Achievement Test-Revised (PIAT-R), a revision of the 1970 PIAT. Describes administration and scoring criteria, psychometric properties, and new features of test design. Emphasizes implications for the practitioner. Concludes that PIAT-R may be useful screening tool when general information concerning student achievement…

Outlines a test-based diagnosis system for misconceptions in DC electric circuits and its three parts: problem library, problem selector and diagnoser. Discusses misconception discrimination and diagnosis theories, and reports the system supports satisfactory diagnosis. Includes an analysis of nine student misconceptions about electrical circuits…

Standard-setting techniques concerning testing, comparisons of these techniques, and methods for assessing interrater and intrarater reliability are described. These techniques are discussed in relation to counselor education programs. (Author/MKA)

Regular testing can serve as an incentive for students to keep up with their readings, but the time and effort involved in composing and grading frequent tests can serve as an equally strong disincentive to time-strapped instructors. We describe a distorted-item (DI) test that simply requires excerpting sentences or phrases from the assigned…

The benefits of standardized testing for a teacher are mentioned for which the teacher has to prepare for the students only for the test and not worry for preparing the students for college, work and life. Standardized testing takes away individualized instruction, does not allow creativity, does not measure true progress or advance critical…

Whether recall of studied words (e.g., parsley, rosemary, thyme) could reduce false recognition of related lures (e.g., basil) was investigated. Subjects studied words from several categories for a final recognition memory test. Half of the subjects were given standard test instructions, and half were instructed to use recall to reduce false…

The effects of race, defined as individual-difference variables, on Black test takers' performance on tests of cognitive ability, knowledge, and skills have not been investigated in the traditional scholarly testing literature. Moreover, the scholarly testing community has been unwilling to consider this alternative conceptualization of race as a…

The author examined potential differences between preservice teachers who held positive self-judgments of their test taking ability (positive self-judgers) and preservice teachers who held negative self-judgment of their test-taking ability (negative self-judgers). Preservice teachers (N = 87) enrolled in an introductory…

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the possibility that administering an initial retention test would influence any subsequent retention tests administered to the same participants. Participants performed 40 practice trials of a four-segment key-pressing task with a movement time goal of 925 ms. Participants were then administered…

Can we use the methods of Web usability testing to learn about library instruction? This article is among the first in the field trying to establish a link between usability and instruction. The author discusses useful insights that Web usability can bring to our pedagogy as well as to the efficiency of library instruction. The result of a Web…

We experimentally investigated the effect of crib sheet construction and use on student learning and exam performance. Students expected to use their prepared crib sheets during testing; however, unexpectedly they first completed a pretest without their crib sheets. Students scored significantly better on the same questions with crib sheets…