Recent efforts have been made to develop more age-appropriate intelligence measures for the elderly to determine the nature of age differences and changes in adult cognitive development. Spatial and reasoning performances of young, young-old and old-old individuals were compared on traditional versus familiar and presumably more meaningful…

The study involving approximately 300 deaf students entering the National Technical Institute for the Deaf was designed to determine the extent to which four cognitive measures could be reduced in overall length without serious threat of information loss. The measures investigated were the California Reading Comprehension Test, the Mathematical…

Although actual or projected satisfaction with parenting is important in determining whether a couple will become parents and how large their family will be, only minimal research has assessed parental satisfaction. The Cleminshaw-Guidubaldi Parent Satisfaction Scale, a 50-item Likert-type instrument designed to measure components of satisfaction…

The aim of this study is to suggest an alternative to the essay testing method of assessing structural understanding of concepts, which suffers from time constraints and lack of scoring reliability. In this method, students' relationship judgments between concept pairs are examined directly rather than by means of multidimensional scaling analysis…

An exposition is made of a method to elicit students' comprehension of the meaning of words commonly used in science, which may be influential in determining what they learn. The method's aim is to elucidate features in students' understanding of childrens' science (that found before formal teaching of science), student science (that found after…

In light of the widespread use of competency testing, the authors consider that it is important to determine ways of developing and using competency testing to insure that it achieves its full potential. The paper, in three parts, introduces a model for the development and validation of competency tests, reviews several methods for setting…

A study was commissioned to develop and validate a test to assess the attitudes of Alberta (Canada) students toward the world of work. The following five dimensions were delineated for consideration: (1) attitudes toward earning a living; (2) perceptions about employer expectations; (3) perceptions about available opportunities; (4) relevance of…

A student questionnaire is presented that is designed to measure attitudes toward school, with subscales for attitudes towards self, other students, teachers, the principal, and the school in general: The Battle Student Attitude Scale. Attitudes are discussed briefly, telling what they are, how they develop, and what effect they may have on…

Attitudes and attitude measurement are critical components of teaching and learning and the instructional developer should collect as much relevant data about that process as possible. It is important for instructional developers to study the attitudes of learners in order to demonstrate attitude/achievement relationships, promote attitudinal…

A simulation study was designed to assess the severity of regression effects when a set of selection scores is also used as pretest scores as this pertains to RMC Model A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act Title I evaluation and reporting system. Data sets were created with various characteristics (varying data reliability and…

To obtain a test which could be used for the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data on teachers' attitudes toward contemporary educational issues, the Attitudes to Educational Issues instrument (AEI) was developed. Statements were written in five-choice Likert format to express attitudes toward these six educational issues: (1)…

Test evaluation summaries completed by the Center for the Study of Evaluation in 1970 and 1976 were used to determine changes in test quantity and quality among elementary-level standardized instruments. In the earlier studies, the instruments were rated in four general areas: measurement validity, examinee appropriateness, administrative…

A large number of seemingly diverse coefficients have been proposed as indices of dependability, or reliability, for domain-referenced and/or mastery tests. In this paper, it is shown that most of these indices are special cases of two generalized indices of agreement: one that is corrected for chance, and one that is not. The special cases of…

This publication is designed to help vocational evaluators wisely select and use tests within the context of the referral questions and the individualized evaluation plan. The first of two parts contains information on why tests are used in evaluation, problems with tests, and how to select tests. Part 2 contains a review of specific tests that…

The objectives of this investigation are to develop, describe, assess, and demonstrate procedures for constructing mastery tests to minimize errors of classification and to maximize decision reliability. The guidelines are based on conditions where item exchangeability is a reasonable assumption and the test constructor can control the number of…