Because testing, in many different forms, currently plays such an important role in education, Elementary Secondary Education Act, Title I, the Division of Federal Assistance in the Vermont State Department of Education, prepared this brochure to present a general introduction to terms and phrases commonly used in testing and to highlight some of…

The role of test scores used as a district monitoring device by boards of education is discussed. It is suggested that board members insist on inservice education to become knowledgeable in using test scores as curriculum feedback, to understand what is being tested, and to understand test results. Concepts to be covered include: (1) meaning of…

The use of standardized tests for program evaluation, student placement, and student progression in order to improve the quality of higher education is discussed. It is noted that student achievement is being used as a criterion for judging programs as part of state assessments. Although standardized test scores have long been used by institutions…

An overview is presented of the current status of competency testing for teacher certification. The question of the effect of certification tests on the quality of hired teachers is briefly discussed. Statistics are presented on types of tests used by various states, with particular attention to differences in the cut-off scores for passage of a…

An overview and analysis is presented of the Vance and Schlechty Study (1982) of education majors which indicated that there is a negative selection process which systematically attracts and holds in the teaching profession young people with modest verbal and mathematical abilities. Three factors, operating singly or in combination, were…

Intended for teachers of reading on the two-year college level, this journal discusses research on the effects of assignments on recognition memory and research on the Nelson-Denny Reading Test as a predictor of college grades in English and psychology. Articles also deal with methods for teaching developmental reading, a program for training and…

This paper reviews ten years of evaluation efforts by the sponsors of Follow Through programs, maintaining that sponsors' evaluations provide a different, equally valuable perspective to the one provided by the national evaluations of Follow Through. Sponsors were persons or groups that developed educational models for Follow Through and enacted…

Results are summarized of research on a program instituting graded objectives and tests in French. The research project was conducted during the 1979-80 school year by the Language Teaching Council at York, England. Two experimental groups and two control groups were formed of students aged 13 and over. Pupils, parents, and teachers completed…

So that comparisons of achievement test scores across campuses would be unaffected by variations in test preparation activities, the Austin Independent School District has set out to standardize all testwiseness instructions and practice testing across the school system. Appropriate preparation activity was defined as that which contributes to…

A standardized language arts achievement test can be used by language arts teachers as they plan the language arts curriculum, group pupils, individualize instruction, and identify pupils needing special help. Two interventions, training and process consultation, were used to identify the most effective method of training preservice elementary…

Two types of testing can be used to enhance the physical education experiences of handicapped learners. Content referenced tests insure that curricula accurately reflect the students' present level of functioning and appropriate goals. Relevant needs should be determined, taking into account such factors as future recreational opportunities,…

The paper describes the application of discriminant analysis to the identification of academically gifted elementary grade students. The principles of discriminant analysis are explained to provide a weighted profile of scores across predictor variables which are then compared with a criterion measure. An illustration of the method's used with 64…

Educators considering adoption of policies regarding the promotion of students from one grade to the next must consider several factors, including acceptable levels of student progress toward terminal objectives, student developmental and cognitive abilities, community attitudes toward student retention, and the educational benefits of retention.…

Reading comprehension tests usually contain reading passages followed by multiple choice questions about the passages; but one potential weakness of this format is that the questions may be "passage independent," answerable without necessarily reading the passage first. When examining this phenomenon by assessing a particular test, the…

This study examined the conversation patterns of 26 Hawaiian kindergarten children in order to determine whether children with a Hawaiian Creole (HC) preference or a Standard English (SE) preference speak to each other. The normal interactions of the children (14 boys and 12 girls) were monitored during the learning center sessions of the…