A method was developed for identifying students who may be at high risk for failing the State Board Licensing Examination (SBE) for registered nurses. The subjects used in developing prediction equations included 50 students who graduated from the nursing program at Saint Joseph's College (SJC) in North Windham (Maine) during the years 1983-84.…

This paper examines data collected from 1988-1989 and identifies a number of correlated factors. The data were drawn from the "1988-1989 District and School Profile," a survey conducted and published annually by the Mississippi State Department of Education. The ACT scores used represent the aggregate scores from within a district while…

Two papers are presented as part of the Effects on Testing Project. The first paper, "The Effects of Testing on Teaching and Learning" (Joan Herman, Shari Golan, and Jeanne Dreyfus), describes a study focusing on standardized, norm-referenced tests. A questionnaire was administered to 85 teachers (kindergarten through grade 12 levels)…

The operational preparations for the Dutch national assessment program in education started in 1986. The program's aim is to periodically describe the contents of the curriculum in use and the attainment of 8-year-old and 11-year-old students on a national basis by means of surveys. In this paper some of the guiding principles in instrument…

A replication of a previous study assessed the construct validity of a national test for academically oriented Swedish upper secondary students. The analysis consisted of a comparison of test results of 10 percent of the Swedish test population to results obtained from a sample of native English speakers of the same age. Analyses of the Swedish…

The keylist format (rather than the conventional multiple-choice format) for item presentation provides a machine-scorable surrogate for a truly free-response test. In this format, the examinee is required to think of an answer, look it up in a long ordered list, and enter its number on an answer sheet. The introduction of keylist items into…

In response to informal reports that the time limitations on the new 1978 test forms of the General Educational Development (GED) Tests resulted in some examinees having to work substantially faster than at a comfortable rate, this study was designed (1) to estimate the time required for examinees to complete the tests at their preferred rate; (2)…

In an effort to validate dynamic assessment methods influenced by Vygotsky's (1978) definition of zones of proximal development (an indicator of readiness), three sets of experiments addressed two goals: the development of diagnostic assessment methods and the use of diagnostic results to guide the design of instructional programs. The first two…

This study hypothesized that items in the one-question-per-passage format would be less easily answered when administered without their associated contexts than conventional reading comprehension items. A total of 256 seventh and eighth grade students were administered both Forms 3A and 3B of the Sequential Tests of Educational Progress (STEP 11).…

The Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills, Expanded Edition (CTBS), was administered in 1984 to students in the District of Columbia Public Schools. This report includes: (1) an overview covering the purpose of testing, a description of the subject areas tested by the CTBS, and a glossary of technical terms; (2) a narrative and tabular summary of…

This study assessed patterns of differences in quantitative performance across groups of intended undergraduate majors consistent with those previously found for students who had completed their undergraduate study. Data were drawn from the College Board Admissions Testing Program's national sample of 10,000 college-bound high school seniors in…

The testing of many American Indian children using standardized exams (achievement, aptitude, ability, and intelligence tests) developed for the majority American society represents a case of cross-cultural testing which is likely to produce invalid results in the form of underestimation of student performance. Requirements for obtaining accurate…

Goal-referenced tests and standardized achievement tests were used to assess the basic skill levels for reading, writing, and mathematics of students attending Parkrose Public Schools of Portland (Oregon) during the 1983-84/1985-86 period. Focus is on estimating the instructional program's success, providing a resource for planning and…

The Metropolitan Achievement Test scores for Boston, Massachusetts, have improved from 1987 to 1988, with scores for 8 grades matching or exceeding the 50th percentile as established in 1986. Reading scores improved over the previous year in seven grades. Yet this "good news" provides little information about real reading skills or…

A project was conducted to develop a model for evaluating placement testing in the North Carolina System of Community Colleges. Researchers at Central Piedmont Community College conducted a longitudinal study of students' progress through the college curriculum as it related to placement test scores. The following numbers of students comprised the…