In this article, the importance of clinical supervision for school counselors is examined in terms of prior literature and the school counseling context. Standards relative to supervision are presented, followed by an overview of each article in the special section of the Counselor Education and Supervision journal (Vol. 45, No. 4, June 2006).

A look at real data shows that Reckase's psychometric theory for standard setting is not applicable to bookmark and that his simulations cannot explain actual differences between methods. It is suggested that exclusively test-centered, criterion-referenced approaches are too idealized and that a psychophysics paradigm and a theory of group…

Schulz (2006) provides a different perspective on standard setting than that provided in Reckase (2006). He also suggests a modification to the bookmark procedure and some alternative models for errors in panelists' judgments than those provided by Reckase. This article provides a response to some of the points made by Schulz and reports some…

A proposed revision in the American Bar Association's accrediting standards for law schools is coming under fire from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which says the proposal seems to require the schools to use racial preferences in hiring and admissions despite federal and state laws limiting such policies. Although a bar-association official…

This article reports how calls are being renewed to tighten the state standards as states feel pressured to revisit them. Two prominent national organizations, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and the National Research Council (NRC), have declared in the past month that "less is more" in state standards for what students…

One year before the National Education Summit, Congress had reauthorized the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and created a National Assessment Governing Board to develop and oversee policy for the NAEP. In conjunction with the call to establish national education goals, efforts are being made to establish standards for…

Some of the different approaches to standard setting are discussed. Brief comments and references are offered concerning strategies that rely primarily on the use of expert judgment. Controversy surrounds methods that use expert judges, as well as those using test groups to set scores empirically. A minimax procedure developed by H. Huynh, an…

The emergence of frequency modulation or FM radio signals, which arose from the desire to free broadcasting of static noise common to amplitude modulation or AM, has produced the controversial development of stereo broadcasting. The resulting enhancement of sound quality helped FM pass AM in audience shares in less than two decades. The basic…

Historically, radio broadcasting has been affected by innovational, social, technological, and economic change. For instance, FM (frequency modulation) radio emerged out of a desire to free broadcasting of static noise common to AM (amplitude modulation) signals. The eventual response by AM was to improve the technology of the signal. The inquiry…

In recent years educators have been utilizing judgmental methods, such as the ones advocated by Ebel and Angoff, to set minimum competency standards on test items. This study was designed to investigate the reliability and validity of these two procedures in setting minimum levels of performance on 175 vocational evaluator competency statements.…

Setting standards for the purpose of certification is frequently performed using judgmental techniques such as the Angoff method. This study was performed to identify types of items that judges find hard to rate accurately, that is, types of items on which examinees perform differently than predicted by the judges. Once identified these item types…

The use of item response theory models for analyzing the results of judgmental standard setting studies (the Angoff technique) for establishing minimum pass levels is discussed. A comparison of three methods indicates the traditional approach may not be best. A procedure based on generalizability theory is suggested. (GDC)

Different procedures for setting cut points on achievement test scales provide the standard-setting participants with different information to support the unique judgment task associated with each procedure. This study examined how participants in standard settings used the different information from three different procedures in Kentucky in 2000.…

Each state is going to set its own education standards, but unless state leaders talk to each other, there are going to be huge unexplained differences in state performance standards for student achievement. What states say they want their students to be taught is quite similar, but they appear to have very different standards for what students…

This document contains the results of a standard setting conducted in January 2002 on the Delaware Student Testing Program (DSTP) Science and Social Studies tests at grades 4 and 6. Each standard setting process entailed convening four groups, one for each grade level and content area, and each group met for 2 days. At the standard setting judges…