In a study of administrative effectiveness, a total of 103 academic department heads in four universities rated a set of 15 administrative activities as to their importance. Faculty members in the 1,333 departments used the same set of activities to rate both the importance they should be given by the department head and the effectiveness with…

A taxonomy was developed for classifying instructional materials in fourth grade mathematics, as well as the content of actual classroom instruction and of achievement tests. The taxonomy is defined by the intersection of three factors and results in 468 cells: (1) mode of presentation (for example, use of graphs, tables, story problems)--3…

The Degrees of Reading Power test (DRP) and its related technology are described in this publication. It contains a brief description of the DRP, which was designed to measure the most difficult level of text that a student can read with comprehension; a report on the validation of the test; sample DRP passages; an instructional viewpoint as it…

Attitudes and attitude measurement are critical components of teaching and learning and the instructional developer should collect as much relevant data about that process as possible. It is important for instructional developers to study the attitudes of learners in order to demonstrate attitude/achievement relationships, promote attitudinal…

The utility of employing teacher reports about characteristics of students and their parents to assess family economic status was investigated using multiple regression analyses. The accuracy of teacher reports about parents' educational background was also explored, in addition to the effect of replacing missing data with logical, mean, or modal…

To obtain a test which could be used for the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data on teachers' attitudes toward contemporary educational issues, the Attitudes to Educational Issues instrument (AEI) was developed. Statements were written in five-choice Likert format to express attitudes toward these six educational issues: (1)…

The historical development and recent applications are described of the picture sequencing format (PSF), a testing device which requires the subject to designate a complete and correct order for a set of related pictures. The earliest use was by Decroly in 1914 and perhaps the best known use is in the Wechsler intelligence tests. Special…

Test evaluation summaries completed by the Center for the Study of Evaluation in 1970 and 1976 were used to determine changes in test quantity and quality among elementary-level standardized instruments. In the earlier studies, the instruments were rated in four general areas: measurement validity, examinee appropriateness, administrative…

This publication is designed to help vocational evaluators wisely select and use tests within the context of the referral questions and the individualized evaluation plan. The first of two parts contains information on why tests are used in evaluation, problems with tests, and how to select tests. Part 2 contains a review of specific tests that…

A study involving 215 college students was undertaken to determine the relationship between assertiveness and communication apprehension by factor analyzing the items on the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (RAS) and on the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA). Six factors emerged from the analysis: apprehensive about speaking,…

In order to determine the predictive ability of the standardized scholastic tests used at Crowder College (CC) with regard to academic achievement, the first-quarter grade point averages (GPA's) of two groups of freshmen were compared with their scores on the American College Testing Program Examination (ACT) and the Missouri College Placement…

The objectives of this investigation are to develop, describe, assess, and demonstrate procedures for constructing mastery tests to minimize errors of classification and to maximize decision reliability. The guidelines are based on conditions where item exchangeability is a reasonable assumption and the test constructor can control the number of…

A study designed to assess the concurrent validity of the Home Bilingual Usage Estimate (which measures the amount of language spoken) in relation to the Dos Amigos Verbal Language Scale (which measures the quality of language spoken) was conducted with a sample of Spanish-surnamed exceptional children from a lower-middle class elementary school…

Fifty-five recent studies of individual differences (IDs) in elementary cognitive tasks (ECTs) are reviewed. Twenty-five data sets are examined, analyzed, or reanalyzed by factor analysis. The following promising dimensions are identified: basic perceptual processes, reaction and movement times, mental comparison and recognition tasks, retrieval…

Although family integration is a much-used concept in sociological research on the family, there has been no consistency in its definition or measurement. Numerous factors representing family integration have been combined to develop a measure, the Family Integration Index, designed to be a more valid and reliable measure of the multi-dimensional…