The increase in large-scale standardized testing in the nation's schools is one major result of demands for accountability. Such testing also impacts many aspects of school and family life and culture. For some, certain unintended impacts may be like side effects of medicines that need to be tolerated; for others they raise larger questions about…

The purpose of this paper is to enumerate a series of security steps that might be taken by those researchers or organizations that are contemplating Web-based tests and performance assessments. From a security viewpoint, much of what goes on with Web-based transactions is similar to other general computer activity, but the recommendations here…

Presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Conference in San Diego in May 2005. This presentation explores the issues and problems with declining response rates to the questionnaire once test registration moved from paper format to a web platform. A decline would affect research over time so interventions were put in place…

This study investigates the variables moderating the net gains as a result of changing initial answers to determine under what circumstances a strategy of changing initial answers is likely to produce increases in total test performance. (Author)

The three-step procedure for judging social studies exercises developed for the NAEP is described for use by schools and communities in considering performance standards for their own students. (Author/KM) Aspect of National Assessment (NAEP) dealt with in this document: Procedures (Utilization).

Presents documentation suggesting sex bias can be found in educational testing and suggests that a more objective treatment of women in educational tests can be made by showing women in a wider variety of occupations and activities and by more equal representation of women in test content. (Author/DN)

Author discusses instruction by media presentation and advocates testing which is designed to fit the instructional methodology. (HB)

It was shown that when a highly anxious student performs a task with a confederate, his performance is lowered and that peers may induce anxiety in others when they (peers) complete a task more quickly. (Author/KM)

Designed to study implosive therapy with groups, this use of a behavioristic technique, which reduces unadaptive anxiety by emphasizing the presentation of the highly anxiety-evoking stimulus until the stimulus is no longer able to evoke anxiety, failed to produce a significant difference between control and therapy groups. (Author/KM)

A model is presented for test construction and scoring that utilizes the knapsack model of mathematical programing. The method applies to examinations of the type in which a choice exists in the number of questions the examinee is required to answer. The method has been utilized with respect to a mathematics examination, and computer-generated…

This study compared the effectiveness of systematic desensitization and training in efficient study methods for reducing test anxiety among subjects selected on the basis of two types of self reported anxiety. Desensitization offered more promise as a treatment method for test anxiety than did training in study skills. (Author)

Author suggests that the examiner experiences the same psychological and physical malaise evoked by anxiety that is felt by the student which may have something to do with today's student-teacher tension. (IR)