Research supported by the U.S. Office of Education, Contract OEC-6-10-239.

The assumption is made that opportunity means a chance to participate, if one chooses, in the intellectual, economic and personal rewards available most readily through mastering the skills, such as literacy and numeracy, that are important in at least one of the viable cultures that make up the society. Historically, the members of some groups,…

The test performance of students who took the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) only once as juniors was contrasted with students who took the test as juniors and again as seniors. Estimates of expected test performance on a common initial administration in the junior year were derived from separate equating sections and background variables.…

The history and institutional use of cutoff scores is reviewed, emphasizing the changes in these scores used over the years and the rationale used in selecting cutoff scores. A brief description of the College Level Examination Program (CLEP) is provided, as is background about how it works. Cutoff score recommendations of the American Council on…

The heavy concentration of time and funds to measure writing performance is the major reason other areas deserving scrutiny are so often neglected by evaluators. Three failings typical of the field of writing assessment as it is conducted for the purpose of program evaluation are: (1) a failure to view writing as a multiple construct; (2) a…

The goal of this booklet is to describe some of the special challenges posed by early childhood assessment in general, and particularly as they apply to Title I program evaluation. The booklet has four purposes: (1) to describe special issues in early childhood assessment; (2) to describe briefly alternative approaches to early childhood…

The investigation studied the effects of different methods of conveying test instructions on the performance of 54 deaf children (6 to 8 years old) on pattern recognition tasks. Ss were randomly assigned to one of three methods of conveying test instructions: simultaneous communication method, pantomime method, and demonstration method. Ss were…

Certain testing procedures will overcome some of the problems associated with the use of essay tests. Essay tests may not validly indicate achievement because the questions included in the test may not fairly represent instructional content. Reliability may be a problem because of variations in examinee response in different situations, in test…

Guidelines are proposed for reviewing career interest tests, aptitude tests, and achievement tests for sex bias in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments 1972. To review the tests, several recommendations are made: analyze the test; review the technical manuals and interpretive information; examine and classify test items, reading…

IN ORDER TO TEST THE EFFICACY OF METHODS USED BY VARIOUS RESEARCHERS FOR GENERATING SPONTANEOUS SPEECH FROM UNDERPRIVILEGED CHILDREN, 20 THREE- TO FOUR-YEAR-OLD GIRLS WERE SELECTED AT RANDOM FROM A HEADSTART-TYPE PROGRAM AT HOWARD UNIVERSITY FOR TESTING. ALL WERE NEGROES AND FROM A TARGET AREA FOR POVERTY PROGRAMS. THE CHILDREN WERE TESTED…

The premise that there are no valid and reliable psychological tests for use with Indochinese refugees is discussed. The history of the use of tests in the United States has been promulgated as being beneficial to the minority group members exposed to them without revealing their underlying discriminatory uses. Only the System of Multicultural…

Three areas of concern related to test bias and validity should be considered during the revision of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Tests. The first area concerns the sources and consequences of test bias. Five sources of bias have been identified: numerical bias, role bias, status bias, stereotypic bias, and familiarity bias. The…

Specifying and writing appropriate items for student writing assessments is an exacting task. All too frequently, however, teachers approach this task by reading a skill statement and hurriedly writing a few items with correct answers combined with several distractors. This approach disregards the essentials of isolating a single skill for…

This criticism of writing competency tests questions both the efficacy of a test developed by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the reliance of individual states on the products of private testmakers. The paper suggests that a hidden curriculum is being developed by independent and semi-independent organizations that…