The literature on testing has documented the existence of persistent anomalies in test scores of bilingual students. School psychology, which is test-dependent and test-defined, has an inadequate technology and knowledge base to deal with the testing of bilingual students, leading to error and misdiagnosis exacerbated by lack of viable testing…

THE PURPOSE OF TESTING IN SEASONAL AND MIGRANT FARMERS' EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS IS NOT FOR MEASUREMENT BUT FOR DIAGNOSIS OF THE DEGREE AND INTENSITY OF HELP NEEDED. TESTS SHOULD BE ADMINISTERED BY THE TEACHER TWO OR THREE WEEKS AFTER CLASS BEGINS WHEN POSSIBLE. THEY SHOULD BE SCORED CAREFULLY, AND THE RESULTS ANALYZED AND INTERPRETED. THE AUTHOR…

Certain concepts that are sometimes confused in discussions on testing socially disadvantaged children are clarified and a history of testing, beginning with Binet, is presented. Finally, five problems in using tests to evaluate educational programs for the disadvantaged are considered. (AG)

This paper reports two experiments whose purpose was to relate two bodies of research on anxiety: test and trait-state anxiety. It was reasoned that state anxiety measures obtained in an evaluation testing condition should be more similar to test anxiety than state anxiety measures obtained in non-evaluative situations, such as a game in Study I…

The Presidential Address at the 1986 National Council on Measurement in Education Annual Meeting argues that measurement specialists have tended to set unrealistic aspirations for the role tests play. The conjunctive decision making model is discussed and the use of data in the conjunctive and compensatory decision making models is examined. (JAZ)

Reviews the test titled Psychological Testing of Minorities and notes that this book brings to the forum by which education may be made accessible to the underprivileged people of society without penalizing them for not belonging to the middle class mainstream culture. (Author/AM)

This paper discusses psychological test obstacles to gaining the acceptance of a diagnosis of mental retardation in criminal defendants, use of the Revised Beta intelligence test with defendants who may be retarded, possible modification of the adaptive behavior criterion for criminal defendants, and appropriateness of the death penalty for…

The history of the concept of intelligence is reviewed, and the construction and uses of psychological tests are explored. Skills consist of a large number of abilities. It is argued that the psychological entity, intelligence, is determined by particular contexts, contexts often induced by social demands. (SLD)

Patterns of responses to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) that typify deliberate deception of others (faking good) were studied using 100 undergraduates at the University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa) who were given extra course credit for participation in the study. Females constituted 73% of the final subject pool. Each…

Three papers are included in this document. The first, "An Introduction to the Problem of Test User Qualifications," by Kevin L. Moreland, is a short history of the American Psychological Association (APA)/American Educational Research Association (AERA)/National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) Working Group on Test User…

This study sought to assess the effects of psychological warm-up on the verbal creative thinking abilities of first-grade children. The subjects were 96 black first-grade children enrolled in two schools in Athens and Atlanta, Georgia. Both schools are located in poor neighborhoods. Children were randomly assigned to control, physical warm-up, and…

New research shows that Japanese achieved significantly higher average IQ scores than did their American counterparts. These results provide the focus of a discussion on the nature/nurture controversey, validity of using IQ scores in comparing mental capacity of races and nationality groups, and other factors related to intelligence testing. (JN)

The basic ingredients of test development and practice are validity and reliability, but the tested impact is equally important. The American Psychological Association Committee on Psychological Tests should be restructured to deal with testing problems, and more research should be done on the public impact of testing. (JAC)

The complex nature of the psychological construct called judgment, the history of its identification as a mental ability, its measurement, and its relationship to other mental abilities are discussed. Factor analytic research which isolated the judgment factor is reviewed. The pervasiveness of the judgment factor throughout a number of diverse…

Specific suggestions and guidelines are presented for modifying psychological tests so that they can be used to obtain results that are not distorted by the individual's handicap. Focus is on testing persons with sight, hearing, and academic problems with the indication that principles developed for this fairly high percentage of the severely…