Asserts that failure to consider carefully the purposes and uses to which standardized tests are put can place barriers in the way of equal educational opportunities for minority students. Proposes six precautions for ensuring that standardized tests can be used without endangering equal educational opportunities. (PGD)

Effects of Test-Wiseness (TW) training and level of TW on multiple-choice item type performance, on standardized and teacher-made examinations in undergraduate medical education were considered. Conditions inherent in standardized tests must be present before a susceptibility to the extraneous source of variance of TW is evidenced. (Author/GK)

Standardized tests have been criticized consistently as being biased, imprecise, and limited. However, lower scores on achievement tests are due to the fact that students are no longer as well prepared by the schools as they have been in the past. (JN)

Provides information on statistical data and jargon so that English department members can more confidently and responsibly identify the inevitable weaknesses and limitations of both tests of writing ability and the research on them. (RL)

Teachers are practically unanimous in their opinion that the benefits derived from a mandated testing program are less than the costs in teacher/pupil time and money, the same information might be obtained from fewer tests, and teacher evaluations are more accurate than mandated tests in assessing pupils' abilities. (Author/CM)

Argues that giving students a reading test that is above or below their levels of achievement will yield inaccurate information. (FL)

Stresses that the use of standardized test results as a means for making any important decision about children's schooling should be opposed by teachers and parents. An alternative to standardized testing is proposed. (Author/DB)

Prevailing procedures and standards practiced by the Educational Testing Service and the College Board deprive the consumer, the test-taker, of civil rights. Is there not a need to review policy and possibly draft legislation which will assure a student due process? (Author)

An essential function of the school guidance worker is the translation of test results into plain language and/or concrete recommendations. To do so requires a thorough understanding of the various test scores publishers provide. (Author)

Addresses the difficulties in assessing the receptive capacity and learning style of a child and matching it to the instructional aspects of schooling. Describes a teacher sensitization course that has been developed to make such matching possible. (WD)

The authors review problems associated with currently practiced matrix methods of identifying gifted students, describe an aggregation method utilizing a statistical approach involving standard scores, and relate the method to specific program examples. (SB)

The author examines four testing alternatives for minority group children who consistently do poorly on standardized tests: off-grade-level testing; not testing minority children at all; changing to an easier test; and criterion-referenced testing. He favors the last alternative. (SJL)

Language assessment is reviewed as a technology which could become more effective for classroom use through school-based development and greater use of alternatives to standardized testing. (Author)

Five new test batteries are reviewed: California Achievement Tests, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, Metropolitan Achievement Tests, SRA Achievement Series, and Sequential Tests of Educational Progress. The review covers six basic areas: test administration, norming, test scores, reporting and interpretation, aptitude test considerations, and general…

Developed as part of the British Ability Scales for ages 2-17, the Social Reasoning Scale was initially based on Kohlberg's invariant moral development stages, although substantial modifications were later introduced. In its standardization, an age progression was noted. Administration procedures, scoring criteria, and an illustrative example are…