Marcia's adolescent identity status interview combines objective scoring with a clinical approach to investigate Erikson's theory in terms of the identity crisis of adolescence. Marcia's interview was extended to adult identity processes by redefining the crisis and commitment dimensions of strength (of involvement in work) and flexibility (of…

The concept of social role range (SRR) deals with the magnitude of an individual's repertoire of different interpersonal behavior patterns and exhibits the properties of a personality trait. Over a broad range of interpersonal settings, individuals tend to be consistent in the magnitude of their SRR's. A role play technique was devised for…

Errors in oral reading tests result from inaccuracies that tend to creep in because children are not totally consistent while taking a test and from inaccuracies caused when the examiner does not catch a word recognition error, giving credit for an answer that is more wrong than right or vice versa. Every test contains a standard error of…

Consistent with its mission of synthesizing available information on performance assessment in a variety of skill areas, the Clearinghouse for Applied Performance Assessment has prepared this summary of the role of performance assessment in selected published tests of problem-solving skill. Performance assessment is defined in terms of assessment…

Two studies investigated the relationships between readability, prior knowledge, and interest in the material being read. In the first study, 169 college freshmen read cloze passages of materials from the Nelson-Denny Reading Tests, then one week later read the whole passages and completed the related multiple choice questions. A control group…

The Evaluations of Classroom Observations Project had three major purposes, all related to direct observation of classroom behavior. First, the project was meant to assess the effectiveness of a behavioral treatment program in furthering the acquisition of appropriate classroom participation skills by disruptive students. Second, the project was…

Stockton Unified School District's successful strategy of using a locally developed, non-normed achievement test to implement the norm referenced model of the Title I Evaluation and Reporting System (Model A2) is described. Documented are the procedures involved in the development of a curriculum guide and test items, and the administration of…

The multiple use of several classroom observation instruments was investigated to determine its influence upon the way an observer records behavior, since such an influence may cause discrepancies in findings between studies. Twenty-four volunteer students were divided into three groups and trained to use one or more of three classroom observation…

Using behavioral rating forms, college professors were covertly rated each day by pairs of students ostensibly enrolled in their classes. On specified days pairs of faculty observers introduced themselves to the instructor and rated him using the same forms. The purpose was to determine whether changes occurred in the instructor's behavior as a…

The influence of parents and teachers upon the deaf child's formulation of his or her concept of deafness is quite profound. The articulation of the attitudes of parents and teachers toward the types of employment deaf people can perform is, therefore, very important. An attitude instrument and research methodology were developed and tested with…

Expansion and modification of a 27-item Delphi derived form for assessing campus police performance resulted in a 43-item form to measure job performance of correctional officers in the Georgia Department of Corrections. The self-rating scale, with a reliability coefficient of .995 (n=120) was subjected to factor analysis and varimax rotation and…

A multiple-choice test was developed to assess cognitive gains resulting from participation in the School Health Education Curriculum Project. The test was intended for seventh grade students, and was based on curricular objectives in the cognitive domain: knowledge, comprehension, application, and evaluation. Educators who were familiar with the…

This study examined the effects of certain item selection methods on the classification accuracy and classification consistency of criterion-referenced instruments. Three item response data sets, representing varying situations of instructional effectiveness, were simulated. Five methods of item selection were then applied to each data set for the…

The lack of a suitable research instrument on attitudes of elementary school children toward school and subject matters has limited the quality and extent of research on school attitudes. The Affective Reporting System was conceived to fill this need. It consists of two instruments--ME and What I Like Best (WILB), each possessing two versions:…

Because it generally took over an hour to administer the Porch Index of Communicative Ability (PICA), a shorter but comparable version of the test was developed. The original test was designed to quantify aphasic patients' ability level on common communicative tasks and consisted of 18 ten-item subtests. Each item resulted in a proficiency rating,…