Alternative scoring methods yield essentially the same information, including scale intercorrelations and validity. Reasons for preferring the traditional psychometric scoring technique are offered. (Author/AG)

Two indices for measuring the degree of conformity or consistency of an individual examinee's response pattern on a set of items are developed. The use of the indices for spotting aberrant response patterns of examinees is detailed. (Author/JKS)

A version of Tobin's framework for analyzing newspaper news items was used and evaluated in a college-level introductory sociology course. The results showed that students viewed the analysis assignment positively, increased their media consumption as a result of it, and found it a useful technique for applying sociological concepts. (Author/RM)

Content analyzed four personality inventories, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, California Personality Inventory, and Edwards Personality Preference Schedule to determine whether each item in the four inventories contained situational, temporal, or comparative information. Wide differences appeared…

Contingency analyses have been employed to assess the degree to which outcomes of successive tests of corresponding items deviate from stochastic independence. A method of adjusting contingency tables to remove the effects of subject and item inhomogeneities, is presented. The method represents a partial solution to the "Simpson's…

Different indices for the internal consistency, reproducibility, or homogeneity of a test are based upon highly similar conceptual frameworks. Illustrations are presented to demonstrate how the maximum and minimum values of KR20 are influenced by test difficulty and the shape of the distribution of test scores. (Author/CTM)

Bayesian techniques are adapted to the estimation of stimulus-response curves. Illustrative examples deal with estimation of person characteristic curves and item characteristic curves in the context of mental testing, and with estimation of a stimulus-response curve using data from a psychophysical experiment. (Author/JKS)

On distractor-identification tests students mark as many distractors as possible on each test item. A grading scale is developed for this type testing. The score is optimal in that it yields an unbiased estimate of the student's score as if no guessing had occurred. (Author/JKS)

Weber contends that the use of Rasch analysis, principal components analysis, and classical test analysis shows that an instrument designed to measure a "bilevel dimensionality" in probability achievement measures a single latent trait. That interpretation and the use of Rasch and classical analysis to establish unidimensionality are…

Obvious items were good predictors of all criteria; neutral items overlapped considerably with obvious items; and subtle items generally did not contribute uniquely to the prediction of any of the concurrent measures of depression. (Author)

A follow-up technique is needed to identify items contributing to items-by-groups interaction when using an ANOVA procedure to examine a test for biased items. The method described includes distribution theory for assessing level of significance and is sensitive to items at all difficulty levels. (Author/GSK)