The purpose of this article is to underscore why we need to maintain the presence of comprehensive evaluations in the identification of students with specific learning disabilities (SLDs). Response to intervention (RTI) models hold great hope for early instruction, and the reduction of the overrepresentation of students in special education who…

General outcome measures (GOMs) provide educators with a means to evaluate student progress toward curricular objectives. Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) is one type of GOM that has a long history in the research literature with strong empirical support. With the increased emphasis on instruction linked to state standards and statewide…

According to a February 9, 2006 "New York Times" story headlined, "Panel Explores Standard Tests for Colleges," a new accountability era is descending upon a resistant higher education domain. The story describes the deliberations of a Bush-appointed commission considering imposition of standardized tests on college students. Ten days earlier, the…

Studies on the acting white hypothesis--the premise that black students purposefully do poorly in school and on standardized tests because of racialized peer pressure--to explain the black-white achievement gap have not been able to negate the fact that a "burden of acting white" exists for some black students, even though it is not prevalent…

Results are reported for a series of 13 studies examining individual differences in information processing efficiency. The tasks used represented different content domains and levels of processing complexity. A total of 680 individuals (balanced between males and females, and aged 18 to 25 years) were tested. Subjects were selected from…

This paper presents six steps in test construction generally recommended by measurement textbook authors. The focus is primarily on paper-and-pencil achievement tests as used by class instructions, although the discussion touches on the construction of other types of assessment. The six steps are: (1) determine the test purpose; (2) determine the…

This document is a pilot study designed to examine the extent to which currently-used subject-matter standardized tests already test for critical thinking in order to determine if there is a need for the construction of new tests. The study also is intended to be a step toward devising a reliable procedure and scoring key that will enable future…

Interviews with children about their knowledge of a set of words was used to examine the concurrent validity of three paper-and-pencil measures of knowledge of these words--a standardized vocabulary test and two experimenter-designed tests. One experimenter-designed test, the Levels test, had three multiple-choice items per word that targeted…

Despite widely-held beliefs to the contrary, three different sources of research data prove that children in the 1990s read better on the average than either their father's generation or their grandfather's generation. "Then and Now" studies indicate that students read better now than decades ago. Restandardization of test norms also…

The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is the largest and most ambitious international study of mathematics and science achievement ever undertaken, with more than 500,000 school students in 45 countries being tested in mathematics and science at five different school year levels. South Africa is the first country in Africa…

This study investigated whether vertical (grade level sequence) alignment of the curriculum in conjunction with teacher collaboration would enhance student performance on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) test in south Texas school districts of various sizes. Surveys were mailed to the office of the superintendent of 47 school…

The admissions decisions of a university are one of its four "essential freedoms," and the courts, as a general rule, defer to universities' judgments regarding academic decisions. In many cases, the courts have said that admissions standards cannot be high-handed, arbitrary, or formulated in bad faith, and they must fall within constitutionally…

The topic of this paper is the second of a two-faceted problem involving achievement testing in the United States. The first facet is the lack of correspondence between test content and intended student outcomes in school districts, and the second facet is "test score pollution." Test score pollution describes instances where test scores for a…

The Iowa Test of Educational Development (ITED), a test of general abilities given to high school students, is intended as a tool for teachers and administrators to measure the progress of their students and plan accordingly; it also purports to assess the use by students of critical and evaluative abilities. Because such tests as the ITED carry…

The K-ABC purports to be a fresh alternative to standardized measures of intellectual functioning, by virtue of separating measurement of acquired factual knowledge from measurement of the ability to solve novel problems. Some researchers have questioned this claim to the capability of distinguishing aptitude and achievement. By analyzing the…