The author traces reasons to support his contention that the state of the art in assessing learning disabled students is not good. Among issues examined are the following: use of tests for purposes other than those for which they were intended; technical adequacy of currently used tests (standardization, reliability, validity); the use of deficit…

A STUDY DESCRIBED AS THE FIRST APPLICATION OF CROSS-VALIDATED UNIQUENESS ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES WAS DESIGNED TO ELIMINATE THE EFFECTS OF IMPERFECTIONS IN A PRIOR FACTOR-ANALYTIC STUDY OF READING COMPREHENSION WHICH USED TESTS ESPECIALLY CONSTRUCTED TO MEASURE MENTAL SKILLS IN READING. A UNIQUENESS ANALYSIS BASED ON LARGE SAMPLES WAS USED TO OBTAIN…

This paper involves an application of generalizability theory in assessing the dependability of a foreign language placement exam. The French Cloze test was administered to students within five levels of French classes and the results were scored by four different raters. Three specific generalizability coefficients are discussed along with…

The problem that this research addressed was one of decision making. Given three sets of criterion-referenced tests which were designed to be parallel in content, would a traditional reliability coefficient produce different decisions about the reliability of those tests than would kappa? The procedure used collected statewide results on 136 test…

A high school population (N = 541) was administered the Rotter Locus of Control in April and again the following November. At the second testing the MacDonald-Tseng and Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scales were given to examine their concurrent validity. The AIM-ETS Survey and a demographic survey were also administered. Test-retest…

The known interval scale, referred to as the 7.8 scale, has been criticized as an invalid measuring instrument in the form of an attitude scale. It is the purpose of this paper to demonstrate that this scale can produce spuriously inflated correlation coefficients, high reliability, and false significance on statistical tests. The case will be…

Applied Performance Tests (APT) are defined as instruments designed to measure performance in an actual or simulated setting. They require at least a close approximation of the setting (if not the actual setting) to which the performance is expected to be transferred. This paper outlines measurement problems and issues that are unique to APT. It…

The use of the intraclass correlation in determining reliability is discussed and shown to be both appropriate and simple to use in the case of an observational measure, provided that observations are made on at least two occasions. The interpretation of such coefficients is explained in terms of generalizability theory, and real data are used to…

The Ohio Vocational Interest Survey (OVIS) has been used as an interest measurement tool measuring student interests toward jobs dealing with data, people and things. The purpose for the present paper was to determine the consistency of the OVIS for measuring these three dimensions through factor analysis. The research findings demonstrated which…

There are few existing or widely known measures of agreement applicable when data is nominal or categorical. Most such coefficients are applicable only when judges classify objects or subjects into a single category. A wider range of applications, including those where judges (1) place probabilities on subjects belonging to mutually exclusive and…

This paper brings together a variety of item-analysis techniques into a coherent system. The system is based on classical test theory, the theorems that can be derived from the equation, X = T + E. The system extends from techniques for analyzing parts of an item separately to techniques for relating items to total test score, to sub-scores, to…

Total circular triad scores (TCT) derived from the pair-comparison Minnesota Importance Questionnaire (MIQ) were used to study the relationship between inconsistency, and both internal consistency reliability and stability. Stability estimates (and Hoyt Coefficients) were computed for each of nine groups (retest internals from immediate retest to…

Weighting test scores by appropriateness of confidence, has almost without exception raised the reliability of test scores. Greater gains appear to occur for the less reliable tests, but that is at least partly because the more reliable a test is to begin with, the more difficult it is to improve it. If confidence-testing allows us to weight…

The evaluation of a testing program is necessary before or during a sound total project evaluation. Ideally, the testing program study should be concurrent with, and equal in magnitude to, the total project evaluation. Step one in an evaluation is to define the testing program's objectives in operational terms. Step two is a thorough description…

The variable of permissiveness developed and measured by Ira Reiss in the form of a Guttman scale of premarital sexual permissiveness was subjected to critical analysis. Both conceptual analysis and testing of questions regarding methodology and interpretation of the scale were used. Several questions were raised about the Reiss scale including:…