The Nature of Scientific Knowledge Scale (NSKS) is a 48 item, Likert-type instrument designed to assess high school students' understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge. This attitude scale is based on a six-factor model adapted from the factor-explication format used by Victor Showalter. Scientific knowledge is characterized as: (1)…

To measure the sex role attitudes of Army personnel, an initial set of 174 items was developed. These items were administered to 721 soldiers at three Army installations; the sample consisted of 540 men and 181 women--401 of these were officers and 320 were enlisted personnel. Factor analysis of these 174 items indicated one strong…

Procedures which are used by Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, Inc., in developing achievement tests are described; these steps are suggested to be typical of major test publishers. A curricular analysis of fifth grade mathematics textbooks is presented, to illustrate the process which determines which skills and objectives are tested. The…

Eight different methods are reviewed for determining whether two or more tests are equivalent measures. These methods vary in restrictiveness from the Wilks-Votaw test of compound symmetry (which requires that all means, variances, and covariances are equal), to Joreskog's theory of congeneric tests (which requires only that the tests are measures…

A generalizability study of timed observations was conducted in 25 primary grade classes to observe teachers' use of time--for instruction, evaluation of instruction, and classroom management--according to the hour and day observed. Observational methods used by on-site researchers included videotape, checklists, running documentaries, frequency…

The College Outcome Measures Project/American College Testing Program (COMP/ACT) Writing Assessment is described, and issues of validity and reliability in the assessment of writing samples using qualitative rating scales are explored. COMP/ACT is composed of three role-playing tasks in the social sciences, natural sciences, and arts, which are…

The manual was designed to aid members of admissions committees in the use of the new Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) for the selection of applicants, and to familiarize health professions advisors and other groups of the basic characteristics of the test and its selection and counseling functions. The first chapter includes a rationale for…

A study was conducted to determine if the observed changes in Head Start children were related to the practice effects inherent in a test-retest situation. The "control" group consisted of 64 children who had been eligible for a Head Start program. They roughly matched a group of Head Start (HS) children in IQ scores, age, and…

The Threshold by Identification of Pictures (TIP) Test and the Discrimination by Identification of Pictures (DIP) Test were evaluated. Test cards used pictures of items from the first 500 words of Basic Vocabulary for Elementary Children, and the children pointed to the article named. After each item, the tester's voice was reduced 5 decibels. In…

The possibility of using translations of American reading tests for the evaluation of pupils belonging to different foreign groups was explored. Two parallel forms of a reading comprehension test geared to United States high school graduates and college entrants and the translations of these into Turkish and the relative retranslations back into…

A test of problem solving behavior which provides information about the mastery of the prerequisites of the problems has been developed for fourth grade children. Each problem solving question is preceded by two other questions which assess the child's understanding of the information contained in the actual question, and an application question…

This report reviews and relates to each other the major concepts and theories that differentiate and define the constructs of motivation, satisfaction, and morale. It also describes and summarizes the potentialities of instruments and methods for measuring these concepts, with the focus on those theories and instruments most likely to be usefully…

Effects of response mode, response format, perceived response style, sex, and anonymity on raw scale scores and extreme response tendencies for two distinct measures of affective behavior were investigated. The two measures were a self-acceptance scale developed by J.R. Phillips and the Machiavellianism IV scale. Where (response mode) and how…

The study prepared reading tests in the children's first language, Spanish, that initially considered their comprehension of the language and subsequently evaluated their skill in drawing inferences or pertinent information from the material read. Two reading comprehension tests (Forms A and B) were constructed, using two different excerpts from…

A 50-item observational instrument was used by cooperating teachers and college supervisors to evaluate the competencies of 77 home economics student teachers from two universities at two time intervals during the student teaching experience. Two analyses of variance (AOV) for each of the 50 items were used to identify items which judges could…