This report describes and summarizes findings on four National Teachers Examination tests provided by 45 faculty reviewers from six Oregon institutions of higher education. The tests were judged on the basis of students' opportunity to learn knowledge measured in test items and the importance of knowledge of items for beginning teachers. Tests…

Item specifications developed by the Arkansas Department of Education as part of the Minimum Performance Testing Program (MPT) appear in this document. Specifically, the social studies materials given to sixth-grade students on the MPT are included. The purpose of an item specification is to provide an overview of the general content and format of…

This monograph contains one-page profiles for 49 language usage tests for the assessment of writing. These tests are indirect measures and evaluate students ability to recognize standard English usage. The profiles are arranged alphabetically by test name. The profiles contain the following elements: (1) name of the test, (2) date of publication;…

Steps are outlined in the construction of two self-report assessment scales designed to measure general life satisfaction and leisure activity levels of developmentally disabled adults. The potential usefulness of a reliable, valid self-report instrument as a measurement tool in client programming is noted in the context of a review of similar…

A computerized testing system was implemented in conjunction with the Radar Technician Training Course at the Naval Training Center, Great Lakes, Illinois. The feasibility of the system and students' attitudes toward it were examined. The system, a multilevel, microprocessor-based computer network, administered tests in a sequential, fixed length…

Part I discusses the many benefits of having an item bank of four-option multiple-choice questions for test construction in English language instructional programs. The advantages of the item bank include: increased effectiveness, efficiency, and professionalism among teachers and administrators in test development, design, writing, review, and…

A study examined whether the process of gathering verbal reports of subjects' thinking while taking multiple-choice critical thinking tests could be used to infer the reasoning process used and identify test items which do not require critical thinking skills. Four factors can render an inference of a subject's critical thinking skills…

This study investigated the relationships among the symbolic representation of problems given to students to solve, the mental representations they use to solve the problems, and the accuracy of their solutions. Twenty eleventh-grade science students were asked to think aloud as they solved problems on the ideal gas laws. The problems were…

The research leading to the decisions to revise the Graduate Record Examination Aptitude Test (GRE) (beginning in October 1981) is reviewed. The issues discussed include the format of the test (the timing of each section and the number of sections, the content of the sections--especially the analytical section), the scoring procedure for the GRE,…

Research and analysis conducted to determine the effects of reducing the administration time for one or more levels of the Basic Occupational Literacy Test (BOLT) are described. The total usable sample consisted of 2,423 subjects. Data were collected from 23 states from 1978 to 1981. Data came from a variety of sources, including schools and…

The psychometric integrity of selected items from the Mathematics Association of America (MAA) placement tests for college students was investigated. Two alternative and parallel versions of the test were developed (Form A and Form B) for this study. Data for 539 students seeking admission into an undergraduate mathematics curriculum at a private…

Difficulty and discrimination ability were compared between multiple choice and short answer items in midterm and final examinations for the internal medicine course at Louisiana State University School of Dentistry. The examinations were administered to 67 sophomore dental students in that course. Additionally, the impact of the source of the…

This manual is designed to provide teachers with technically sound, easy-to-follow procedures for developing diagnostic tests to be used with their own students. The definition of diagnostic testing is broadened to include any tests systematically designed to provide information about skills that students have or have not mastered. A five-step…

A 1978 study (Torgesen, Bowen and Ivey) of the structure and modality variables of the Visual-Aural Digit Span (VADS) test was replicated to determine: (1) if the effects generalized across age; (2) if differences between simultaneous and sequential visually presented items were due to mode of presentation or the amount of study time; (3) the…

As it becomes socially less acceptable to appear prejudiced, the difficulty in obtaining unbiased measures of attitudes toward women increases. The Situational Attitude Scale-Women (SASW) was developed to overcome this methodological difficulty. The SASW consists of two parallel forms, one containing neutral situations involving "a…