Students with severe/profound mental retardation performed functional tasks under training or probe conditions. Analysis of nine students' records indicated that students do not react to probe conditions as if they were extinction conditions; training data do not consistently reflect performance under probe conditions; and data collected under…

Reviewed are the issues of planning, student preparation, exam scheduling, student verification, and software security. Discussed are the effects on student scores of exam scheduling and of students' familiarity with computers, student evaluations of the exam, and security and technical difficulties. (Author)

Discusses the link between testing and the content of instruction and proposes a method for generating large numbers of objective-relevant test items for instructional programs in high schools, higher education, and training situations. Higher level thinking outcomes are discussed, item sets are described, and generic scenarios and questioning are…

In an excerpt from "Horace's School: Redesigning the American High School," Theodore Sizer states that what is needed is raised expectations within the various agencies that now affect standards rather than their demotion and replacement by a more centralized system. Public policy must address the two barriers to excellence--public…

In part one of a two-part essay, a broad view of foreign language testing and a comprehensive philosophy for meaningful pragmatic tests are advocated. (10 references) (JL)

A discussion of multifacet Rasch model analysis describes the Rasch model and its assumptions, then presents an extension of the model to include a facet for the influence of examiner severity. The model is illustrated with an application to an oral examination administered by a medical specialty board. (Author/MSE)

Describes the methods by which one teacher prepared eighth-grade language arts students for the Florida Writing Assessment exam. Considers the pros and cons of such activities. Advocates activities in which students are asked to evaluate each other's writing. (HB)

Considers teachers' research into adult/pupil dialog. Questions the way teachers converse with students. Asks how teachers listen to what children say and how teachers reciprocate. Studies language facility as an age-related phenomenon and considers whether conversation is led and developed in linguistic context by the adult. (HB)

Explored the relative contributions to Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) score dependability of various numbers of persons, items, subtests, languages, and their various interactions. Sampled 15,000 test takers, 1000 each from 15 different language backgrounds. (Author/VWL)

Studied children with word finding difficulties who were identified through a wider survey of educational provision for those with language and communication difficulties. (Author/VWL)

Presents a qualitative study that was conducted to investigate the mathematics preparation experiences of three African-American students involved in a high-stakes test situation. Highlights consideration for the implementation of critical elements that determine the success of high-stakes tests in urban settings. (Contains 32 references.) (ASK)

Examines the relationship between lexical and grammatical knowledge to reading and listening comprehension. University students learning Spanish participated in the study. All participants performed the tests of lexical knowledge and grammatical knowledge respectively. Results suggest both similarities and differences between reading and listening…

Three studies were carried out that tested sign theory, which predicts that nonverbal abilities should correlate positively with primary language abilities. The first examined the possible effects of bilingualism on cognitive ability; the second and third examined Korean adults learning English as a foreign language. (Author/VWL)

The relation between similarity and dissimilarity of context was analyzed for synonymous nouns. New semantic similarity and dissimilarity rating tests with an empirically determined series of linguistic anchors and conventional, arbitrarily anchored semantic similarity ratings were compared. Contextual similarity was elicited by a sorting test…

Discusses a general theory of signs showing that the relationship between acquired language proficiencies and nonverbal abilities must be closer than commonly supposed. Presents a general theory of signs showing why it is possible in principle to make linguistically and culturally unbiased judgments about intellectual abilities on the basis of…