This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 15 titles include studies dealing with the following areas: the evaluation of student writing; the assessment of the communicative competence of kindergarten children; formulas for predicting high school reading achievement; an English usage examination at a Texas university; a survey of secondary school English teachers' knowledge and attitudes regarding testing and accountability; considerations in designing a composition placement instrument; assessment of the functional communication competence of 17 year old students; the influence of readers on the holistic grading of essays; the construct validity of the Grammatical Closure subtest as a measure of language ability; a test of the critical listening ability of college students; the training of preservice teachers in the use of standardized language arts achievement tests; the effects of the cultural context of language on the performance of black inner-city students; the reliability of ratings on the Language Skills Examination; faculty evaluation procedures for secondary level English teachers; and methods for determining the internal consistency of English compositions. (GW)