What effect varying the phrasing of attitude statements would have across sex and grade was determined. Three content parallel forms were developed to assess student attitudes toward integration. Each form contained 15 items and differed only in terms of item phrasing either positive, negative or a combination of both. Six hundred and twenty-two,…

Guttman's facet theory is described as a method for quantifying information concerning attitudes. It is stated that attitude items are not negatively correlated for usual populations. An attitude is defined as a delimited totality of behavior with respect to something and its components are elements of a set. The first step in facet research…

Eighty undergraduates were administered four self-report locus of control inventories, in order to evaluate the convergent and discriminant validity of four categories common to these inventories: chance, fate, personal control, and powerful others. The four inventories were: (1) Internal, Powerful Others and Chance scales; (2) James Internal…

After vigorous review, editing, and trial testing, this item bank was compiled to help secondary school teachers construct objective tests in the social sciences. Anthropology, economics, ethnic and cultural studies, geography, history, legal studies, politics, and sociology are among the topics represented. The bank consists of multiple choice…

Three levels of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills were studied to disclose the possible existence of sex bias in mathematics test items. Two mathematics tests (mathematical concepts and mathematics problem solving) and two comparison verbal tests (vocabulary and reading) were selected for analysis at three levels--grades 3, 6, and 8. Samples of 480…

Two different formats for multiple-choice test items were compared in an experimental test given in a college class in introductory psychology. In one format, a question or incomplete statement was followed by four answers or completions, only one of which was correct. In the other format, the double multiple-choice version, the same questions…

The purpose of this released exercise set is to provide easy access to some exercises from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) second mathematics assessment, conducted in 1977-78. Part 1 of the text explains NAEP's assessment procedures and describes the documentation provided for the various kinds of exercises in the set. Part…

In a study concerned with the function of test wiseness in competency testing and with the impact of question stem structure within a reading competency test, 43 fourth grade students and 38 sixth grade students were administered one form each of the experimental material. This material consisted of ten questions presented in the stylized language…

This booklet offers English teachers a summary of the literature on test development and practical suggestions for test writing. The issues addressed include (1) honesty in testing, (2) understanding the place of testing, (3) characteristics of good testing, (4) preparing a classroom test, (5) what diagnostic tests reveal, (6) essay questions, and…

Work on the development of a phonics test that will be incorporated into a total word identification test battery has continued for several years. A prototype of the test was developed in winter 1977, and a revised version was administered in spring 1978. Analysis of this test data revealed several problems, and new criteria for the test were…

Many combinations of a method and an approach for estimating the operating characteristics of the graded item responses, without assuming any mathematical forms, have been produced. In these methods, a set of items whose characteristics are known, or Old Test, is used, which has a large, constant amount of test information throughout the interval…

Research related to the multiple choice test item is reported, as it is conducted by educational technologists in Japan. Sato's number of hypothetical equivalent alternatives is introduced. The based idea behind this index is that the expected uncertainty of the m events, or alternatives, be large and the number of hypothetical, equivalent…

The traditional vehicle for collection of information from parents about a school's goals is a questionnaire that provides alternative goal statements. Two problems are frequently associated with such questionnaires: the goal lists suggest that a school can achieve all desired goals simultaneously; and many surveys use stimulus questions that are…

A writing competency exam has been developed at a Vermont state college as a uniform method of judging attainment of a specified minimum standard for writing. The test was designed to meet four primary criteria: to judge student ability to create discourse, to yield specific evaluative information, to involve all academic divisions in test design…

MeasureMetric is a school television/film series for fifth and sixth grade students which presents measurement and the metric system. The main goal of this test development effort was to produce a valid and reliable test usable by classroom teachers for measuring children's achievement of the objectives of the twelve 15-minute programs dealing…