This study reports the preliminary results of a research project that focuses on the development of an abbreviated measure of computer anxiety, the Computer Anxiety Scale (CAS)-Short Form (SF), designed for use with upper elementary and secondary school students. The subjects involved in the study included 1075 students in grades 4 through 12,…

The project explored the assessment of vocational decision-making capacities of handicapped students within the educational system, specifically the Decision-Making Interview (DMI) instrument. The adaptability, reliability, validity, and utility of the DMI with handicapped secondary students were investigated. Under an instrument adaptation phase…

Intended for administrators and policymakers as well as teachers, this digest explores approaches to, problems with, and trends in large scale writing assessment. The digest first compares direct and indirect assessment approaches, then examines three approaches to scoring: holistic, primary trait, and analytic. It then discusses issues and…

Defining calibration of comprehension as the correlation between subjective assessments of knowledge gained from reading and performance on an objective test, this paper draws from literature, as well as the findings of original experiments, to examine issues related to the subject . The paper first documents the claim that poor calibration is the…

The validity of interval and time sampling methods of measuring student engaged time was investigated in a study estimating the actual time students spent engaged in relevant motor performance in physical education classes. Two versions of the interval Academic Learning Time in Physical Education (ALT-PE) instrument and an equivalent time sampling…

A study examined inter-rater reliability on the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages/Educational Testing Service (ACTFL/ETS) oral language proficiency rating scale. Seven raters, all elementary or intermediate college Spanish teachers given only brief formal training in the use of the scale, evaluated recorded interviews with…

A target partition analysis (TPA) was used to help seven subject matter experts, with little expertise in testing, evaluate relationships among test items. The subjects were experts in Income Maintenance in the field of public assistance work; they were trainers affiliated with the Professional Development Program's Income Maintenance Training…

A new approach to polychotomous scoring of test items, similar to "max-alpha" scaling (MAS) and known as polyweighting, has been developed. Unlike MAS, this new method of polychotomous scoring provides scoring weights for a given item that are independent of the difficulty of other items in the analysis. Moreover, the scoring weights are…

The Michigan Mathematics Early Placement Test (MMEPT) is an assessment instrument that gives 11th-grade students an appraisal of their mathematical skills in relation to college expectations. Students who take the test receive a report letter that tells them, based upon their test results, approximately where they would be placed in mathematics if…

Application of the Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS) to the assessment of child abuse is described. The CTS is a brief instrument designed to measure three aspects of parent-to-child behavior: (1) reasoning; (2) psychological aggression; and (3) physical aggression. The psychological and physical aggression indexes are intended to measure the…

The reliability and validity of the Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviors (ISSB), a measure designed to tap behaviors pertaining to the provision of social support, were studied. Data were analyzed on a pre-test sample of 100 adults from a community-based, epidemiologic study of 1,008 black adults in Virginia. Findings are presented on the…

The School Mastery of Reading Test (SMRT) program was designed to give administrators and teachers information about reading performance and recommendations for improving the instructional program. The project includes development of a valid and reliable reading test based on the New York City curriculum in order to assess the potential linkage…

The proposition that the optimal number of options in a multiple choice test item is three was examined. The concept of functional distractor, a plausible wrong answer that is negatively discriminating when total test performance is the criterion, is discussed. Three distinct groups of achievers (high, middle, and low) on a national standardized…

Three standard assessment instruments (Rorschach, Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory and 16PF) were administered to 12 participating Rosebud Sioux Indians--6 males, 6 females. Reports were generated for each instrument. Consensual and unique concepts contained in all the reports were analyzed in order to describe the contents. Six judges, all…

As part of a new teacher evaluation program initiated by the local school board, the Charleston County School District (South Carolina) adopted the Assessments of Performance in Teaching (APT) as a major evaluation tool to assess the teaching performance of annual contract teachers. Since evaluation procedures can ultimately lead to teacher…