The development and field testing of a proficiency test in English as a Second Language for non-native speakers teaching on Guam is reported. The resulting instrument measures four language skills (listening, reading, writing, and speaking). The listening measure uses natural language that might be heard by a classroom teacher. The reading measure…

Several factors are related to adult students' completion or noncompletion of reading assignments before class--lack of study time, their motivation for taking college classes, their need to feel involved in the learning process, and their expectations for success in the classroom. One of the biggest fears of adults returning to a school…

Seven short articles on the use of standardized tests in the United States are presented. Topics include: (1) the effects on school restructuring during the 1990's of the backlash against standardized tests; (2) the movement to replace multiple-choice standardized testing and its relationship with curricular goals; (3) the influence of…

Minimum competency cut-off scores on a statistics exam were estimated under four conditions: the Angoff judging method with item data (n=20), and without data available (n=19); and the Modified Angoff method with (n=19), and without (n=19) item data available to judges. The Angoff method required free response percentage estimates (0-100) percent,…

The keylist format (rather than the conventional multiple-choice format) for item presentation provides a machine-scorable surrogate for a truly free-response test. In this format, the examinee is required to think of an answer, look it up in a long ordered list, and enter its number on an answer sheet. The introduction of keylist items into…

This study hypothesized that items in the one-question-per-passage format would be less easily answered when administered without their associated contexts than conventional reading comprehension items. A total of 256 seventh and eighth grade students were administered both Forms 3A and 3B of the Sequential Tests of Educational Progress (STEP 11).…

Designed to assist school jurisdictions in interpreting their achievement test results, this report describes the achievement testing program in Alberta, Canada, and indicates the conditions for student exemption from testing. It explains the Grade 3 English Language Arts Achievement Test design and development, gives a description of the test…

The Nevada Department of Education implemented a standard setting study of the Pre-Professional Skills Tests. The tests constitute a secure test battery developed by the Educational Testing Service to assess basic proficiency in reading, writing, and mathematics via three multiple-choice tests and a written essay test. The Nevada study, in the…

One question regarding the utility of adaptive testing is the effect of individualized item arrangements on examinee test scores. The purpose of this study was to analyze the item difficulty choices by examinees as a function of previous item performance. The examination was a 25-item test of basic algebra skills given to 36 students in an…

The New Jersey College Basic Skills Placement Test (NJCBSPT) is designed to measure basic reading, writing, and mathematics skills of students entering New Jersey colleges. The test consists of five sections: Essay, Reading Comprehension, Sentence Sense, Mathematical Computation, and Elementary Algebra. The test is intended to answer the question…

This research study was designed to assess preservice elementary education teachers' knowledge of U.S. history. The "High School Subject Tests: American History," developed by Scott, Foresman and Company for use with high school students, was administered to 139 elementary education majors enrolled in required undergraduate social studies methods…

The Advanced Placement Program reports grades to students and colleges on a 1 to 5 point scale derived from combining the separate scores on the multiple-choice and free-response sections of Advanced Placement Examinations (ADPEs). In this study, predictions of grades in first-semester college biology courses were made based on students' separate…

When test questions are not intended to measure language skills, it is important to know if language is an extraneous characteristic that affects item performance. This study investigates whether certain stylistic changes in the way items are presented affect item performance on examinations for a health profession. The subjects were medical…

The ability to correctly answer reading comprehension test items, without having read the accompanying reading passage, was compared for third grade learning disabled students and their peers from a regular classroom. In the first experiment, fourteen multiple choice items were selected from the Stanford Achievement Test. No reading passages were…

The effects of humorous test questions on test performance of high and low-anxious college students was investigated. It was hypothesized that humor should reduce the anxiety level of high-anxious subjects, and thus improve their performance, while having little effect on low-anxious subjects. Students were assigned to a low or high-anxious group…