The "high stakes" environment surrounding student performance on standardized achievement tests has pressured educators to improve test scores--in both appropriate and inappropriate ways. Convened to examine such testing practices, a National Council on Measurement in Education developed guidelines for managing ethical, instructional,…

The issue of test utility in measuring what students actually know has stimulated movement toward alternative, more authentic (and expensive) assessment approaches. Norm-referenced and authentic tests can complement each other, if educators build on youngsters' existing skills. The District of Columbia Public Schools' D.C. 2000 project stresses…

A unified treatment is presented for conditions that should allow detection of measurement bias using statistical procedures involving only observed or manifest variables. Computational results demonstrate that methods for studying bias that rely exclusively on manifest variables are not generally diagnostic of the presence or absence of…

Developed Korean version of Youth Depression Adjective Check List (Y-DACL). Administered state form of Y-DACL to 829 Korean adolescents along with Beck Depression Inventory and Self-Rating Depression Scale. Internal consistency was high, split-half reliability was moderately high, and test-retest reliability was low as expected. Estimates of…

Effects of the following three variables on rating scale response were studied: (1) polarization of opinion regarding scale content; (2) intensity of item wording; and (3) psychological width of the scale. Results with 167 college students suggest best ways to balance polarization and item wording regardless of scale width. (SLD)

Discusses the issues related to the testing of listening comprehension in the context of the 1986 American Council Teaching Foreign Language Proficiency Guidelines. Four issues are singled out: the meaning of context in testing listening; the concept of criterion-referenced tests; the notion of specific purposes in testing; and the use of…

The structure and power of certain reading, mathematics, and psychological tests prevent educators from really seeing children and how they think. Furthermore, the curriculum has been corrupted into nothing more than practice for the tests. Adults rarely ask children what their thinking was. This drill-and-kill approach reveals little truth about…

The 1980s reforms made many promises and provided few concrete results. Systematic coordination of teacher training with student needs is lacking; the SAT provides no incentives for studying a given curriculum; and outcome expectations and performance standards are low. This article advocates creating high-quality curriculum frameworks and…

The common comment made on British university students' comprehensive examinations is incorrect but persists. It is an indication of how (1) the exams themselves upstage the educational process; (2) educators overuse platitudes and are quick to criticize; and (3) the questions asked are inappropriate. (MSE)

The president of the University of California proposes that colleges and universities abandon their use of the SAT I in assessing applicants, and several other higher education officials respond. (EV)

Explores why underrepresented minorities test relatively low on college admission tests and how the tests can be improved to predict student success. Argues that the system must address differences in backgrounds, learning styles, and study habits. Outlines a research agenda to arrive at a solution. (EV)

Contains guidelines that provide an international view of areas of consensus about what constitutes "good practice" in test use. Guidelines address key competencies, such as knowledge and skills, and issues of professional and ethical standards in testing, the rights of test takers, test administration and scoring, and other issues. (SLD)

Explains and demonstrates a procedure that is commonly used to determine the reliability of a test in such a way that a person who has modest arithmetical skills can carry out the same analysis on a classroom test or examination. (ASK)

Using generalizability theory, this study examined both the rating variability and reliability of ESL students' writing in the provincial English examinations in Canada. Three years' data were used in order to complete the analyses and examine the stability of the results. The major research question that guided this study was: Are there any…

This article provides a broad overview of the definition of web-based surveys examining some of the benefits and burdens related to using the Web for data collection. It draws upon the experience of two years of data collection on 10 university campuses demonstrating that there are noticeable differences in the speed with which web-based surveys…