To explore the hypothesized dimensionality of teachers' attitudes toward educational innovations, nine rating scales were validated to measure general change-related values; innovation-specific attitudes and behavioral orientation; adoption of innovations; attitudinal commitment to adopted innovations; and ongoing participation in change-related…

Kramer's study supporting the construct validity of the Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-Behavior (Firo-B) scale was replicated in this experiment. The significantly different results reported by Froehle may be due to differences in the populations sampled and in their environment. (GDC)

This study determined if mildly mentally retarded secondary school students could respond to a verbally presented multiple-choice test of social and personal knowledge. Teacher ratings were also obtained. Results supported the use of two- and three-alternative multiple choice tests. (Author/JKS)

A long-range plan to evaluate medical students' physical examination skills was undertaken at the Ingham Family Medical Clinic at Michigan State University. The development of the psychomotor skills evaluation model to evaluate the skill of blood pressure measurement, tests of the model's reliability, and the use of the model are described. (JMD)

The Personal Progress Index, designed to assess students' knowledge at regular intervals, is administered at the McMaster University (Ontario) Faculty of Health Sciences three times annually. Feedback is provided to students, and accumulated student performance is determined for summative evaluation. Results over 4 classes (n=400) show it to be…

Investigated the psychometric integrity of the College Student Reasons for Living Inventory of suicidal behaviors in a sample of 511 undergraduate students from a large Midwestern university. Results tentatively support the scale's continued use and development. (KW)

Examined open-ended production tasks in higher level testing in French-as-a-second-language courses in the United Kingdom. The article studied the effect of teachers' linguistic background, training, experience, and ability on their marking of students' oral language tests; the reliability of marking criteria; and the validity of assessing…

Both the postpositivistic (Ellis, Ladany, Krengel, and Schult, 1996; Ladany, Hill, Corbett, and Nutt, 1996) and interpretive (Neufeldt, Karno, and Nelson, 1996; Worthen and McNeill, 1996) studies in this special section on supervision research are reviewed from the perspective of rigor and relevancy to the critical questions facing educators and…

Focuses on the role of tests in assessing the reading comprehension of students of English as a Second Language. The article suggests that if tests are to be useful in placing students and developing instruction, they need to provide information about the reading processes of immediate interest. (83 references) (CK)

Examines the origin and current meaning of the labels, ESL (English as a Second Language) and EFL (English as a foreign language). Places these acronyms in historical context, evaluates their current credibility, distinguishes three contexts commonly referred to as ESL environments and proposes a new nomenclature that better captures the role of…

Discusses a procedure for assessing individual performance in team sports. Authentic assessment using observation of players' actions during matches yielded the efficacy index and volume of play index. A method of producing one performance score combining both indices and reflecting motor and tactical skills is suggested. (SM)

To investigate degree of variation in factor structures produced using different factor analytic techniques, two large data sets were analyzed using four factor analytic approaches (theoretical conventional, theoretical conventional-confirmatory, modified confirmatory, and pure confirmatory). Data sets included third through seventh graders and…

The study of curriculum-based measurement (CBM), involving 57 adults in a basic literacy program, found that narrative rather than expository passages exhibited higher reliability. Level of difficulty did not affect reliability. Validity data showed inconsistency between CBM and standardized test scores. The measures were sensitive to student…

Compared teachers' holistic scoring of Nigerian English-as-a-Second-Language students' essays and their scores on a standardized language proficiency test. Results revealed that holistic scoring of essays lacked concurrent validity with the subject pool. (32 references) (CB)

A 40-item Likert scale, Transpersonal Orientation to Learning, was developed to investigate transpersonal (spiritual or mystical) orientation. The scale was validated via administration to 166 graduate students in education to determine their beliefs about the development of spiritual potential in learning environments. Satisfactory reliability…