The Illinois Inventory of Educational Progress (IIEP) writing assessment is designed to assess students' knowledge and skills on curricular benchmarks. The Rating Guide for Functional Writing is criterion-referenced. The IIEP is neither mandated by statute nor connected to graduation requirements. Randomly selected students are tested each year.…

Discusses Michael Canale's paper, "Considerations in the Testing of Reading and Listening Proficiency," focusing on the third section, "Suggestions for improvements in receptive language testing." Considers such areas as: (1) level descriptions for academic use, (2) item and item types, and (3) validation. (SED)

The differences between the testing practices at the University General Requirements Unit (UGRU) of United Arab Emirates University and the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) were studied, focusing on the differences in styles of grading written English examinations. The UGRU always uses norm- referenced testing in their 1-year foundations…

Teachers and principals need to understand and be able to talk intelligently about statistics. They need to be able to clarify concepts and generalizations used in tests that measure student progress. Among the terms educators need to be able to explain are "mean,""average,""median,""validity,""reliability,""pilot studies," and "item analysis."…

An international project for improvement of an Indonesian university's chemical engineering curriculum and later extended to other institutions and departments, included these changes: greater emphasis on discussion and problem-solving techniques, use of learning modules, introduction of criterion-referenced grading, and extended and improved…

Describes an experiment with 332 students enrolled in an instructional media course at Pennsylvania State University which evaluated the instructional effectiveness of self-paced instruction when units were accompanied by visual aids differing in amounts of realistic detail and the relationship to a student's reading comprehension level. Nineteen…

Competency testing is a fact of life for many new teachers. This article describes different types of tests and the purposes for which they are used in various states. Teachers and spokespersons for educational organizations and institutions express their views on testing and on how test results may affect teacher education. (PP)

Norm referenced data were utilized for determining the mastery cutoff score on a criterion referenced test. Once a cutoff score on the norm referenced measure is selected, the cutoff score on the criterion referenced measure becomes that score which maximizes proportion of consistent classifications and proportion of improvement beyond change. (CP)

Describes an objective-referenced test in mathematics developed by Educational Testing service to assess 40 of the Delaware statewide objectives of fourth-grade students. This test provides information on comprehensive mathematics skills to both administrators and teachers. (DS)

Outlines the specifications for objective-based programs in career education, describes the development of one component (an item and objective bank) of an objective-based woodworking program, and discusses the development of objectives and test items and the utilization of criterion-referenced testing data. A sample of the woodworking objectives…

The Ontario Ministry of Education conducted case studies of the testing programs in nine selected school districts. Results are presented in narrative form on the major study questions: testing program development and organization, the tests administered, uses of test results, and perceived role of the ministry in evaluation programs. (SJL)

It is recommended that auditory-verbal clinicians working with children with hearing impairments and their families use a battery of specific language tests when providing an early intervention program that focuses on language growth. These multiple measures should include norm-and criterion-referenced instruments that specifically measure…

Evaluates whether the "Degrees of Reading Power" reading achievement test (1) is a testing and teaching tool; (2) is a valid reading assessment; (3) should be used for third grade; and (4) correlates with other reading tests. Questions whether the test's Readability Report information really reflects test scores. (SR)

Criterion-referenced testing was used to complement norm-referenced procedures in a revision of a university's English-as-a-Second-Language placement test for reading. Test validation results indicated that the revised test better matched the university's program and included more items related to the content and skills that students were…

This Louisiana System for Teaching and Learning Assessment and Review (STAR) illustrates conceptual, methodological, and social/political issues emerging when the decision-making model used to make teacher certification decisions does not fit the assumptions of the measurement system used to collect the data. (SLD)