Attitudes toward high-stakes testing and score enhancement strategies of 4 cohorts of preservice teachers (total n=268) were determined. Findings suggest that preservice teachers can make acceptable judgments about appropriateness for the extremes of score enhancement strategies but are less able to do so in the intermediate range of the continuum…

A survey of the attitudes and practices of 420 college faculty toward providing teaching and examination accommodations for students with learning disabilities found greater willingness to provide teaching than examination accommodations. Faculty was most willing to allow students to tape-record lectures and least willing to provide supplementary…

Claims the Australian Literacy Benchmarks for Year 3 and Year 5 set unrealistic standards, are educationally unworkable, and represent an unacceptably imprecise and confusing set of statements and criteria. Compares the Literacy Benchmarks with the New South Wales English Language and Literacy Assessment (ELLA). Claims the Benchmarks represent a…

Presents an open letter to President Clinton regarding his statements about reading standards and testing made in his 1997 State of the Union Address. Points out serious problems in having a national reading standard and trying to get every fourth grader to meet that standard. Discusses problems with curing the so-called reading problem by use of…

Articles in this special section consider (1) flow in test taking (Craig Deville); (2) testwiseness (Thomas O'Neill); (3) test length (Benjamin Wright); (4) cross-language test equating (Richard W. Woodcock and Ana Munoz-Sandoval); (5) computer-assisted testing and testwiseness (Richard Gershon and Betty Bergstrom); and (6) Web-enhanced testing…

Today's teachers are unprepared to meet increasingly complex assessment challenges. The poor state of assessment literacy arises from naive assumptions about standardized testing and student motivation, fear of being held accountable for student achievement, parents' nostalgic views of testing, and confusion over achievement expectations for high…

Four conditions of a standard false belief task were administered to 10 children with specific language impairment (SLI), 10 children of the same age, and 9 younger children with comparable language skills. Results found that linguistic competence served as a limiting factor in false belief performance in children with SLI. (Contains references.)…

A study investigated the psychometric validity of current language impairment, communication activity limitation, and quality of life measures for differentiating 18 typical adults from 18 adults with chronic aphasia. Results indicated there existed significant relationships among some demographic variables and performance on the measures,…

In England, the General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQ) assessment regime has been radical, influential, and controversial. Drawing on interviews with diverse policy-development constituencies, this paper argues that GNVQs presented mainstream policy processes with profound ideological and epistemological challenges undermined by…

Study focused on the problems of curricular misalignment with placement tests used in community colleges. Findings indicate that while pre-test and post-test scores were highly aligned, there was little or no relationship between placement test scores and student performance in class, or between test content and skills emphasized in class. (PGS)

Summarizes issues related to the provision of testing accommodations for examinees with disabling conditions, considering the history of such accommodations, the disabilities typically addressed, legal issues and precedents, and psychometric issues. Also considers social policy questions related to equity and fairness in testing. (SLD)

Fournier, coordinator of the School Achievement Indicators Program (SAIP), claims that score differences are associated with linguistic and gender differences. These results have long been substantiated. The expectation-setting process has little reliability or validity. SAIP does not help teachers, and should not determine what students learn.…

Test accommodations are changes in standardized test conditions to equalize opportunities between students with or without disabilities by achieving valid scores. The Individuals with Disabilities Act 1997 amendments require states and districts to include disabled students in accountability programs. Assumptions, practical implications,…

One way to manage marking error, in a large-scale educational testing context, is to establish a mechanism through which appeals can be lodged. While, at one level, this seems to offer a straightforward technical solution to the problem of marking error, it can also result in unintended consequences, with political, social or educational…

Although the literature on effective schools has been replete with information regarding a new paradigm for assessment, some teachers and schools have found it difficult to implement and sustain classroom practices that take them beyond testing discrete knowledge. The reasons for this struggle are as much educational as they are political.…