This paper examines the grading policies and practices of about 300 teachers from seven high schools in the San Francisco Bay area. Three questions are addressed: (1) Who or what determines grading policies? (2) How do teachers actually calculate grades, that is, what kinds of performances factors are taken into account by teachers? (3) How do…

This report summarizes test results for the objective portion of the 1983 New Mexico High School Proficiency Examination (NMHSPE) in the Albuquerque Public School district. The NMHSPE assesses the mastery of skills and knowledge specified in the New Mexico Basic Skills Plan. A basic skill is the ability to apply one of five designated skills…

The Australian Scholastic Test (ASAT) was first used as a moderating device in the Australian Capitol Territory in 1977. Differences have been observed in the average performance of males and females on the test. The study reported in this monograph investigated the nature and origin of the score differences recorded for ASAT The research focused…

The content of selected major achievement tests is examined for bias in the frequency of references to the male and the female sex. The performance of males and females is contrasted on each item considered, and the relationships between item content and the performance differences is surveyed. The tests used in this study include the Metropolitan…

This unit of instruction on citrus production was designed for use by agribusiness and natural resources teachers in Florida high schools and by agricultural extension agents as they work with adults and students. It is one of a series of 11 instructional units (see note) written to help teachers and agents to educate their students and clients…

The relative effectiveness of multiple-choice (MC) and constructed-response (CR) test formats in computer-managed instruction (CMI) were compared using four test groups of 30 trainees each who were assigned nonsystematically from the basics course at the Propulsion Engineering School, Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Group A took module tests in…

This document is one of five learning packets on alternative energy developed as part of a descriptive curriculum research project in Arkansas (see note). The overall objectives of the learning packets are to improve the level of instruction in the alternative energies by vocational exploration teachers, and to facilitate the integration of new…

A study was conducted to compare tailored testing procedures based on a Bayesian ability estimation technique and on a maximum likelihood ability estimation technique. The Bayesian tailored testing procedure selected items so as to minimize the posterior variance of the ability estimate distribution, while the maximum likelihood tailored testing…

A pilot study of handicapped students and the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) was designed to assess the concerns of handicapped students about the SAT, to identify problems specific to certain disabilities or common across disabilities, to alert the College Board and Educational Testing Service (ETS) about the findings, and to make recommendations…

This technical note describes part of the work done to develop student achievement tests in reading and mathematics for use in a later phase of the Beginning Teacher Evaluation Study. While the achievement battery consists primarily of group-administered multiple-choice test items, several individual-testing studies were conducted to examine the…

A 21-item group-administered rating scale was designed to measure elementary school students' sex-stereotyped attitudes about adult occupations. The students responded to items by designating who could, as well as who should fill certain occupations. By choosing from five responses (only women, more women than men, about the same number of women…

To investigate the effects of wording in attitude test items, a five-point Likert-type rating scale was administered to 173 undergraduate education majors. The test measured attitudes toward college and self, and contained 38 positively-worded items. Thirty-eight negatively-worded items were also written to parallel the positive statements.…

The efficacy of employing subsets of items from a calibrated item pool to estimate the Rasch model person parameters was investigated. Specifically, the degree of invariance of Rasch model ability-parameter estimates was examined across differing collections of simulated items. The ability-parameter estimates were obtained from a simulation of…

The Australian Science Item Bank consists of three volumes of multiple-choice questions. Book 1 contains questions on Physics and Astronomy. The questions are designed to be suitable for high school students (year 8 to year 12 in Australian schools). The questions are classified by the subject content of the question, the cognitive skills required…

Three test-analysis models were used to analyze three types of simulated test score data plus the results of eight achievement tests. Chi-square goodness-of-fit statistics were used to evaluate the appropriateness of the models to the four kinds of data. Data were generated to simulate the responses of 1,000 students to 36 pseudo-items by…