This paper reports the development of a test battery to replace the structural testing used in Kuwait to assess skills acquired in the communicatively-based Crescent English Course. A list of activities and tasks required of students at level six was drawn from the course syllabus, and four modules containing clusters of integrated language tasks…

Because the science of nursing is still at an early stage of development, nurses involved in clinical research often find that no appropriate measures are available to sample the theoretical construct of interest. Researchers often must design and test new instruments before proceeding to test theory. A study of the effect of nurse-client…

This study focused on two questions: (1) whether the types of study-aid test, or the levels of test anxiety would affect the level of performance on the test under non-anxious conditions; and (2) whether there would be any interaction effect between the types of study-aid test and the levels of anxiety under non-anxious conditions. Twelve female…

Reviews of 20 career guidance measures are reprinted from the Association for Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development's "Newsnotes." Each entry includes author, title, publisher, purpose, format, scoring, norms, cost, review, concerns, and additional reviews. These tests cover the areas of occupational interests, career awareness,…

The competency testing movement will yield few improvements in the schools and will create arbitrary barriers to progress for some students. Although it may stimulate educational improvement for limited-English-proficient (LEP) students, as for other students, by giving cohesion to the curriculum, guiding scarce resources for remediation,…

Form level is a major element in the scoring and interpretation of Rorschach responses. Exner's 1974 text and 1976 comprehensive system workbook provided helpful norms and scoring conventions for determining form quality, but its 1985 revision appeared to lead to generally lower levels of form quality. To examine this clinical impression, the…

A technique for detecting item bias that is responsive to attitudinal measurement considerations is a maximum likelihood factor analysis procedure comparing multivariate factor structures across various subpopulations, often referred to as SIFASP. The SIFASP technique allows for factorial model comparisons in the testing of various hypotheses…

Prior research indicates that language-handicapped children obtain higher test scores when tested by personally familiar examiners than when tested by personally unfamiliar examiners. The present investigation inquired whether this finding is due to examinees' actual differential performance across the two examiner conditions, or whether it is the…

This study examines item bias on Forms L and M of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) for 132 Anglo-American and Mexican-American children in grades one through four. Analyses of variance were employed to assess item bias as defined by items x ethnicity interactions. Follow-up analyses were performed using a Bonferroni-type…

The potential of item response theory (IRT) for solving a number of testing problems in the Maryland Functional Reading Program would appear to be substantial in view of the many other promising applications of the theory. But, it is well-known that the advantages derived from an IRT model cannot be achieved when the fit between an item response…

Questions about the appropriateness of the Nelson-Denny Reading Test have led to consideration of the use of a criterion referenced test for assessing students' reading abilities before and after each semester of developmental reading instruction. In constructing such a test, a number of steps should be followed. The first step is to clarify the…

Suggestions are made regarding ways teachers can help adult learners reduce their test anxiety. These general comments apply to content-oriented courses and may have some general applicability to all testing situations. The suggestions include clearly characterizing the test prior to its administration, planning for last-minute questions on test…

Thirty-three counselors attending a workshop at the 1988 Annual Convention of the American Association for Counseling and Development were asked to rate six "critical incident" exercises on bias in test content and unfairness in test usage. About two-thirds of the subjects were female, and one-third were male. The subjects ranged in age…

The frequency and diversity of reading and mathematics tests, test approach (norm-referenced or criterion-referenced) and the format of measurement were studied. The contextual variables surrounding test administration and interpretation were examined. The teacher's knowledge of, and attitudes toward, testing were investigated. Results of a…

The National Institute of Education (NIE) sponsored a "Clarification Hearing" to examine the pros and cons of minimum competency testing (MCT). The purpose was to provide information that will assist educational decision makers and others as they address some of the more critical issues concerning MCT policy and programs. As a result,…