Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of high school students to calculate the actual improvement in freshman grade point average, college completion, and total years of schooling from colleges' use of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), Crouse compares predictions based on high school rank to argue that the SAT's costs do not justify…

Compared beginning kindergarten subtest scores on Vane Test of Language and Vane Kindergarten Test to Metropolitan Achievement Test Scores in reading and math, Otis-Lennon School Ability Test Index, and placement into special education or high achievement programs following second grade. Results revealed effective predictability of the screening…

Presents a validation procedure for the Computer Literacy Examination: Cognitive Aspect, a test assessing high school students' computer literacy levels. Steps in the test's construction process are explained, data collected during its validation phase are analyzed, and conclusions on its validity and reliability are discussed. The final test…

Provides information about: (1) demographics of Hispanic Americans; (2) findings indicating poorer preparation for college of Hispanics, than of non-Hispanic Whites; (3) roles of sociocultural characteristics and encouragement by school personnel; (4) predictive value of Hispanic high school grades and college admission test scores; and (5)…

The Personal Reaction Scale was developed as a test for adults to measure their locus of control perceptions. It was administered to women college students, their parents, and parents of preschool children. Responses were factor analyzed to yield six factors: Fate, Social Self, Personal Self, Self-Determination, Luck, and Powerlessness.…

The question of which set of scores for those students who retake the Medical College Admission Test yields a better predictive validity is addressed. Five sets were considered as predictors. Twenty-five criteria were used, including grades earned in the freshman and sophomore years. (Author/MLW)

Roth's Mother Child Relationship Evaluation was administered to 54 mothers and 20 fathers of children aged 3 to 11. The underlying dimensions--acceptance, overprotection, overindulgence, and rejection--were also assessed. Results suggested the need for both revision and renorming of the instrument. (Author/GDC)

Validity coefficients of the Descriptive Tests of Language Skills, the Academic Tests of the ACT Assessment Program (ACT), and high school percentile rank were calculated with cumulative grade point average (CGPA) at end of each of four years of college for 496 students entering through a special admissions program. The most valid predictor of…

The results of two validity studies employing undergraduate students provided support for the proposition that the extent to which a decision-maker holds a sex-role egalitarian attitude moderates the tendency to evaluate males and females differentially. (Author/PN)

Research on the validity of student rating scales of teacher performance is inconsistent, and the issue of why the scales are used needs examination. Until their criterion validity is raised to correlations of .7 to .8 or construct validity can be established, results should not be used in making tenure decisions. (MSE)

Presents approaches to test development analysis, reliability, and validity based on criterion-referenced measurement principles and compares them with norm-referenced approaches in terms of the types of decisions that result from either approach. This is done by using data from an English-as-a-second-language achievement testing project at the…

A study of persistence/dropout among open admissions college students found: (1) accurate predictions cannot be made for individual students at the time of matriculation; and (2) it is possible to predict that about 80 percent of future groups will fall in the persist category after two semesters, 51 percent after four semesters. (CMG)

The Figural, Symbolic, and Semantic dimensions or the Structure of Intellect Learning Abilities (SOI-LA) tests have been employed as prescriptive tools for matching students to appropriate methods of reading instruction. A multiple-group factor analysis revealed strong evidence of their construct validity in a normative sample of 364 second…

Twenty-one studies that reported mean score differences between the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability (WJTCA) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) Full Scale are summarized. The differences are found to be minimal and are attributed to data bias and WJTCA's higher correlation with achievement. (EGS)

PLANA is a training program for subject matter analysis and construction of instructional objectives. This evaluation compared the performance of PLANA-trained and control-group teachers as to their precision in defining teaching objectives and their corresponding instructional tasks and test items. (BW)