Competency testing can provide helpful information to educators and the public. (Author)

Immediate post-testing of high school students after they studied a prose passage improved their memory significantly. (JD)

Describes a self-instructional practice test utilizing negative-image slides of multiple choice questions and subsequent correct answer slides to provide immediate feedback. (RAO)

Examines linguistic, psychometric, and clinical aspects of the Test for Sentence Development, a subtest of a new Dutch language production battery, the Schlichting Test voor Taalproductie. The advantage of the new test is that very young children can be assessed systematically, which was not possible previously. (Author/VWL)

Examined the extent to which years of exposure to a language, amount of language input at home and at school, and amount of exposure to reading and other literacy activities in a language relate to observed bilingual performance in young children as obtained from teacher and parent reports. (VWL)

Discusses the problems and successes encountered in implementing a Web-based registration and administration system for credit-by-examination in a required graduate course, detailing the ways in which this system improves upon its paper-based predecessor. (EV)

Guidelines are provided for cardiovascular fitness testing of moderately or higher functioning severely retarded individuals. (IAH)

This article discusses the public health dangers associated with radon exposure in homes and schools. In addition, testing and corrective efforts by federal and state agencies are discussed. A map indicating areas in the U.S. with potentially high radon levels is included. (IAH)

Why calculators should be used for testing, as well as for instruction, is discussed. The focus of the curriculum would shift from computation to deeper development of concepts and to mathematical modeling. A broader curriculum would result. (MNS)

Finds no evidence that the standard procedure for administering a spelling test (in which the examiner pronounces the word, uses it in a sentence, then pronounces it again) is any less effective than those utilizing additional visualization and vocalization components. (RS)

Relative importance of appearance and potential function in children's object naming was examined. First, 16 children, taught novel names for unfamiliar objects, had to decide whether these applied to items that resembled the training objects in appearance or potential function. Then the name training procedure was revised so that equal emphasis…

Performance assessment was once the only method of educational evaluation; then multiple-choice tests proliferated. Renewed interest in assessment brings these cautions: (1) use for most critical outcomes; (2) use technology; (3) involve students as raters; (4) note student behaviors; and (5) restrict to program-level indicators. (SK)

A comparison of severely dyslexic adolescents with younger, normal readers matched for reading level and IQ revealed that phonological discrimination ability accounted for much of the variance in reading ability between dyslexics and normal readers. The results suggest that dyslexics may have specific difficulties with the retrieval of the sounds…

Explores using control charts as an unbiased diagnostic tool for monitoring (college) student performance and identifying students likely to perform poorly in a course. Control charts have many desirable consequences; they can help formulate an assessment and monitoring policy and, when necessary, can serve as a valuable starting point for a…

Provides a history of validation in language testing, discusses current approaches to validation in language testing (hypothesis about testing outcomes, relevant evidence for testing the hypothesis, developing a validity argument), and gives an overview of current challenges in language-test validation (defining the language construct to be…