Describes the plan used in Consolidated High School District 230, in Palos Hills (Illinois), for fostering an informed and interested school community by providing standardized test results to the school board, central and building administrators, parents, teachers, counselors, elementary educators, and the local press. (PGD)

Three major areas (response mode, methods of presentation, and content) in which standardized assessment instruments can be modified to obtain objective information about the present abilities and/or future potential of severely handicapped students are discussed. (Author/SB)

Discusses different emphases placed by institutions of higher education on a range of admissions criteria including academic performance, evidence of graduation, letters of recommendation, personal essays, and interviews. Concludes that standardized tests are not the pervasive barrier to higher education in the United States that many test critics…

The present social and political climate is marked by an increasing appreciation of human diversity and of society's need to accommodate such diversity. The social context for testing is thus fundamentally different from that in which standardized testing developed. Testing should now be more concerned with facilitating equal opportunity.…

The purpose is to assist teachers in determining parallels between the content of mathematics instruction which they provide and the content tested by the four most widely used standardized tests of elementary mathematics. Striking differences in content covered by the tests are noted. (MP)

Analyzes reasons for poor achievement by Blacks on the National Teacher Examinations (NTE) and the implication of test results for Black colleges. Discusses results on other standardized tests by Blacks and Whites, the nature of NTE, Black students' lack of basic skills, and Black institutional policy factors. (DC)

Discusses the proper interpretation of the three scores commonly reported from norm-referenced standardized reading tests: grade equivalency, percentile, and stanine scores. (FL)

Compared the standard scores and age scores obtained from the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)(1965) and the Revised Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-R)(1981) with (N=88) preschool children. Results found the mean PPVT IQ and Mental Age scores were significantly higher. Discusses implications for using the PPVT-R. (Author)

These studies indicated preschool children show a high degree of variability when responding to the same test questions within short time intervals. In two studies, children were inconsistent in responding. In a third, one-third of the children responded inconsistently. Studies with standardized test items revealed inconsistency among most…

Responds to the Nader report on the Educational Testing Service authored by Nairn. Major themes of the nine chapters of the report are addressed. The last sections provide comment on the responses of the Educational Testing Service. (RC)

Arguments for enjoining enforcement of the New York state law to disclose results of standardized admissions tests to students address these issues: copyright, financial harm to test creators, constitutional protection, and the public interest. Recent court litigation, especially concerning the Medical College Admission Test, is reviewed. (MSE)

A Spanish version of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA) and its English translation were administered alternatively to 297 kindergarten and second-grade Hispanic children from bilingual classes. Results cast doubt on court decisions that require bilingual Hispanic children to be tested in the language predominant in the home.…

Three "tests" of intellectual competence (vocabulary, remote associates, trigram word-making) which permit cheating were standardized by rankings of 71 college students. The three tests were found to be equidistant along the dimension of perceived difficulty. Suggestions are made for using these tasks in cheating studies. (Author/SJL)

A validational procedure was used, which involved a matrix of intercorrelations among tests reresenting four areas of Chartered Life Underwriter content knowledge, each measured by objective multiple-choice and essay methods. Results indicated that the two methods of measuring the same trait yielded fairly consistent estimates of content…

Responding to critics of testing, the author presents an argument in its favor--that testing is one of the ways in which a teacher may gather information necessary for student monitoring and instructional decision-making. (SJL)