Test-wiseness is discussed in the newsletter of Programs for Educational Opportunity (PEO), a combined race, gender, and national origin desegregation assistance center providing technical information to eligible public schools in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. PEO is based on the belief that specific teaching of test…

Issues in preparing a review form to detect item bias in tests are discussed and the first draft of an item bias review form is presented. While stereotyping is the consistent representation of a given group in a particular light, bias is the presence of some characteristic of an item that results in differential performance of two individuals of…

The cultural bias of the Adult Performance Level Assessment, Form AA-l (APLA) was examined. The potential influence of cultural differences on scores of a major ethnic group, Acadians or Cajuns, was investigated. Assessment items most prone to produce differences in scores were isolated and administered to selected groups. No significant…

Current testing and selection practices in schools and the workplace are examined to describe the experiences of handicapped people and to determine the extent to which testing is a barrier to the full participation of handicapped people in society. The Panel on Testing of Handicapped People dealt in depth with the legal and psychometric issues…

A case study of the Florida Teacher Certification Examination (FTCE) program was described to assist others launching the development of large scale item banks. FTCE has four subtests: Mathematics, Reading, Writing, and Professional Education. Rasch calibrated item banks have been developed for all subtests except Writing. The methods used to…

Limitations seen in traditional educational procedures are discussed, and three new directions are suggested as being important emphases for testing. A new perception of measurement in which children have positions along particular concept dimensions or "lines" is discussed in terms of traditional testing notions including variables, item banks…

This handbook is intended primarily for the classroom teacher and the school principal. The focus of the book is on the evaluation of students as they pass through elementary and secondary school. It includes suggestions for the classroom teacher in developing tests and other assessment measures. It deals with a range of educational objectives in…

The CIRCO project is a large scale effort to design a series of diagnostic instruments, based on the CIRCUS tests, for Spanish-speaking children in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade classrooms in the United States. The goal is to develop measures with the following characteristics: (1) is suitable for use with Spanish-speaking children from…

Thirty-two reports and publications pertaining to national declines in abilities and in test scores are cited, and most are annotated. These publications were issued between 1961 and 1976 and provided evidence considered by the Advisory Panel on the Scholastic Aptitude Test Score Decline. (Author/EVH)

Public Law 94-142 provides safeguards to assure that materials and procedures utilized for the purposes of evaluation and placement of handicapped children be selected and administered so as to avoid racial and cultural discrimination. This publication is designed to provide the educational community with information to assist them in bringing…

Local norms for the three scores of the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT)--reading, spelling, and arithmetic--were developed on the basis of 1,021 children in the age range of 5 through 7 and 83 more children aged 8 through 11 from a suburban school district near Seattle, Washington. In general, the local group was found to be superior to the…

A pilot study of handicapped students and the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) was designed to assess the concerns of handicapped students about the SAT, to identify problems specific to certain disabilities or common across disabilities, to alert the College Board and Educational Testing Service (ETS) about the findings, and to make recommendations…

Traditional, product-oriented testing must be abandoned if instructors in college reading and study skills programs are to effectively evaluate student educational outcomes. Such tests are hardly compatible with the way the brain functions, in that they require precise answers to precisely worded questions which are the product of the test-maker's…

THE ROLE OF TESTING AS A SPECIAL MODERN TECHNIQUE OF ASSESSMENT IN COLLEGE ADMISSIONS IS EXAMINED. THE EMPHASIS IS UPON THE USE OF TESTS AS PREDICTORS OF SUCCESS IN COLLEGE, THE CLARIFICATION OF CRITERIA USED TO EVALUATE HUMAN BEHAVIOR IN THIS SETTING, AND THE BROADER IMPLICATIONS OF CULTURAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL DIMENSIONS OF TESTING AND TEST USAGE.…

This guide is concerned with the increasing number of women returning to college and the need for academic, personal and vocational counseling programs specifically designed for them. Barriers are presented which affect re-entry women but which can be alleviated through counseling. A wide range of ways in which institutions can be more responsive…