Review the progress and refinement of educational assessment during the past 40 years. Discusses the dynamic effects of the interaction between persons in various fields of educational practice and persons specializing in educational evaluation. Mentions adoption by the U.S. Army of psychological and educational tests for purposes of selection and…

Discusses problems with the ACTFL/ETS Oral Proficiency Guidelines and examines inconsistencies relating to three assumptions of oral proficiency (OPT)--hours of study, accuracy/interest, and errors. Further, it is argued that the main problems with OPT arise from an analytic approach and the native speaker yardstick. (SED)

Grade equivalent (GE) scores for elementary school achievement tests are defended in response to efforts to ban their use. Equal interval developmental scoring methods for the Sequential Tests of Educational Progress and the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills are criticized. (BS)

Informal but frequent teacher evaluations of students' academic achievement are not standardized by official prescriptions dictating which reference system is to be used. Three reference norms used when evaluating achievement are: social, criterion-oriented, and individual reference norms. (PN)

Many standardized measures with norms are available, but their utility for interinstitutional research, evaluation, and decision making is questioned. It is concluded that there seems to be little reason for using the standardized instruments now available, but that other sorts of instruments probably would not be any more useful for comparative…

Testing in the nation's schools is on the rise. From the classroom quiz to the large-scale standardized test, the pressure for education to be "accountable" has intensified. As children experience this new tide of testing, it is helpful to become more aware of the different types of tests and their purposes. Students in the United States…

This digest discusses the assessment of children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Topics addressed include: (1) the purpose of an assessment of children who are deaf or hard of hearing; (2) problems associated with assessment, including the diagnostician's lack of experience with the deaf population, communication problems, tests that are normed…

This paper describes some of the issues of fairness for Hispanic English Language Learners (ELLs) taking the Stanford 9 (SAT 9) achievement test, a norm-referenced standardized achievement test administered annually to California students in grades 2-11. Until a student is at ease in English, a process that may take as long as 7 years, an…

This study was conducted to determine whether norm-referenced test data and Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) data from 1995 and 1999 showed similar gains in reading and mathematics achievement. TAAS data were collected from all students in Texas who were in the accountability subset of scores used for rating schools, approximately…

This publication provides a general description, in question-and-answer format, of the 1999 Utah Statewide Testing Program. Under this program, norm-referenced achievement tests are administered to Utah students in grades 5, 8, and 11 under a legislative mandate. The newest edition of the Stanford Achievement Tests, the Stanford 9, was chosen as…

The 1970s has become the time for reevaluating the intended purposes of tests, and for considering meaningful alternatives to the test score. Author considers the criterion-referenced versus the norm-referenced test. (Author/RK)

Author discusses and defines criterion tests in the context of classroom needs that have created much of the interest in the theory at this time. The primary source of interest is related to the growing implementation of individualized curricula. (Author/CB)

Normative data for 198 urban children (four to eight years old) who speak Black American English (BAE) were obtained on the Test of Language Development. Results revealed speakers of BAE differed significantly in performance from children on whom test was standardized. Difference in performance was reflected in overall test scores and in…

Meta-analysis of Title I program evaluations shows the norm-referenced model overestimates positive effectiveness; while the regression-discontinuity design underestimates it. Potential biases include residual regression artifacts, attrition and time-of-testing problems in the norm-referenced design, and assignment, measurement, and data…

The internal validity of the RMC models, especially Model A, is examined. Concern centers on limiting evaluation to cognitive outcomes, using constant percentile as the no-treatment expectation, and using norms for one test to establish the expected no-treatment performance level for another test. (MH)