Faced with a frustrating lack of ability to solve the problem of providing educational opportunities for inner city children, many have turned, in frustration and despair, to the creation of myths about the whole enterprise, including achievement testing. Three myths about educational achievement testing and inner city children that are addressed…

The GED occupies a well earned position of strength as an accepted and reliable program of 30 years standing. Nearly 2.2 million civilians have passed the GED and 300,000 people in the United States are earning their high school diplomas each year by passing the GED at State-set levels. Although there will be new national norming and new forms of…

Project TALENT, a large scale, long range, longitudinal study, is designed primarily to provide insights into the characteristics and development of American adolescents. In order to compare trends in test results, a comprehensive battery of Psychological, educational, and personality measures were administered to participants in the 1960, 1970,…

A number of strategies are described for adapting ability test items to individual differences in ability levels of testees. Each strategy consists of a different set of rules for selecting the sequence of test items to be administered to a given testee. Advantages and disadvantages of each strategy are discussed, and research issues unique to the…

While debates over the heritability of IQ and the potential for culture bias in measuring instruments have generated much research and public comment, it is also possible to investigate the significance of interracial differences in mean IQ by ignoring both the foregoing issues and instead examining the social psychology of the test situation…

The construct of motivation toward school is vaguely defined. The Junior Index of Motivation (JIM Scale) is one of few instruments claiming validity in measuring motivation toward school among junior and semior high students. This study discusses the shortcomings of the JIM scale, and compares item and total score characteristics and correlates…

Data was collected from school systems in order to examine their policy regarding the release of standardized achievement test scores to the public. Results indicated that larger schools were more likely than small schools to release scores. For those schools releasing scores, a breakdown was provided for the methods and statistical measures used.…

A 15-stage pyramidal test and a 40-item two-stage test were constructed and administered by computer to 111 college undergraduates. The two-stage test was found to utilize a smaller proportion of its potential score range than the pyramidal test. Score distributions for both tests were positively skewed but not significantly different from the…

The second volume of the Commission on Tests' report contains the briefs submitted by individual members for the consideration of the full Commission. These briefs, which argued for 46 proposed recommendations, formed the basis for the recommendations made in the first volume. Each brief is accompanied by a record of the endorsements, comments,…

The primary purpose of this leaflet is to assist the teacher of English in building good achievement tests, with special attention to planning and construction. Subjects covered are general considerations for planning a test, making a blueprint for the test, basic characteristics of effective tests and test questions, selecting the proper test…

To find the concurrent validity of two scholastic aptitude tests when a scholastic achievement test was used as a criterion for use in placement of mentally retarded children, 127 subjects were involved. The California Achievement Test (CAT) was used as a criterion measure, and the Primary Mental Abilities test (PMA) and the Slosson Intelligence…

To determine the long-run impact of the CERLI training program, the trainees' abilities to function as Specialists in Continuing Education (SCE) had to be measured and assessed. This assessment is a followup to "Assessment of the CERLI Training Program Specialist in Continuing Education" (EA 002 706). The document reports on attempts to…

This book includes nine essays. In the Introduction: "The Lingering Infatuation with IQ," the editors argue that since the IQ test has again risen as an instrument of conservative policy, the test and the arguments built around it must be reexamined. Noam Chomsky criticizes the well-known "Atlantic" article, "IQ" (September, 1971), in "The Fallacy…

This study was conducted in order to develop and evaluate a systematic screening method which could be used by counselors and school psychologists in the identification of first graders showing characteristics generally associated with learning disabilities. The study was conducted within three Title I schools in a large sourthern metropolitan…

The 1966 Invitational Conference on Testing Problems dealt with the innovations of the new age of flexibility and the problems of evaluating and preparing for them. Papers presented in Session I, Innovation and Evaluation, were: (1) "Innovation and Evaluation: In Whose Hands?" by Nils Y. Wessell; (2) "The Discovery and Development of Educational…