This paper addresses the issues raised in a recent review of postcompulsory education and training in Victoria. In the interim report (April 2000) it is stated that employers found that the skills of new graduates appear to be most deficient in the areas of creativity, flair, problem solving, oral business communication, and interpersonal skills.…

Considerable testing occurs in the schools and in related educational settings. Schools are microcosms of society, and changes that affect society are also likely to affect the schools in similar ways. The composition of American society has been changing dramatically in recent years, and this particular change is one that has influenced schools…

A survey, designed to take approximately 15 minutes to complete, was administered to 1,656 elementary school teachers in Michigan to obtain information on a variety of topics related to student assessment and mandated state testing. Most of the teachers were employed in small suburban or urban schools, and 88% were employed in the public schools.…

This paper states that today's newspaper and educational journal articles complain that only half the school population can read on grade level. Yet standardized tests are written to spread pupils out from the first to the 99th percentile, or from three or more standard deviations above to three or more standard deviations below the mean.…

The effect of calculator type on student performance on a mathematics examination was studied. Differential item functioning (DIF) methodology was applied to examine group differences (calculator use) on item performance while conditioning on the relevant ability. Other survey questions were developed to ask students the extent to which they used…

There is a need for more precise descriptions of the claims to truth of standardized tests, of their interpretive authority, and of the limits of understanding which are reached through their processes. Typically minority students who score poorly on such tests do because their schools fail to connect with them. Pedagogy, therefore, must somehow…

Drawing from the latest research, this book explains how little standardized test results really say and how harmful a test-driven curriculum can be. The central message is that the use of standardized tests can be reversed, and that teachers, parents, and students can reverse the trend toward testing to create classrooms that focus on student…

The problems of cheating on tests and what to do about it are explored, beginning with information on the methods used to cheat. Methods to detect cheating, circumstances that promote cheating, and ways to respond at the individual and institutional levels are outlined. The chapters are: (1) "An Introduction to Cheating: The Wrong and the Short of…

Black college students from three socioeconomic levels were compared on the variables of Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores, attrition after a two year period, grade point averages (GPA) and correlation between the SAT and first semester GPA. The middle socioeconomic group consistently performed most poorly on GPA. (Author/KM)

An indictment of the ways in which reading and mathematics standardized tests affect classroom curricula. (Author)

Analyzes the difficulties in trying to estimate which instruments yield dependable information about children and the misconceptions surrounding testing. (Author/RK)

Studies the effect of play-like, verbal-feedback, and nonverbal-feedback testing conditions on three creative ability measures using 175 lower-class preschool children, finding that most of the creativity measures used were unaffected by variations in testing conditions. (Author/JM)

Several areas of controversy between Soviet pyschologists and their Western colleagues concerning the usefulness of tests for measurement of mental ability are noted in this article. The author outlines test procedures suggested by Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotsky. (SM)

Describes a framework for assessment within which direct, continuous, naturalistic observation of behavior provides many of the advantages one seeks in evaluation. (Author/JM)