Teacher certification issues are considered from the perspective of blacks in the profession. It is argued that teacher certification tests mandated by states threaten to reduce significantly the number of new minority teachers and seriously harm the historically black institutions of higher education that train teachers. The development of…

The Board of Education of the School District of the City of Saginaw requested the Department of Evaluation Services to review the literature relative to competency testing, especially for the elementary grades. This review on competency testing programs and competency based education (CBE) covers several areas. The emphasis on educational…

Barbara Jordan served as the hearing officer for three-day adversary evaluation hearings about the pros and cons of minimum competency testing (MCT). This report is the complete transcript of the second day of proceedings. The pro team, lead by James Popham, began by presenting representatives of four states (Florida, California, Texas, and…

The effects of physical modifications of the minimum competency test on the performance of third grade learning disabled (LD) students (n=345) on versions of a Florida state minimum competency test are evaluated. The test modifications included alterations in line length, groupings of items, answer formats, administration procedures, as well as…

The first step in developing a communication competency assessment instrument is determining whether there is conceptual support for such an instrument. Funding should also be determined, since speaking skills must be assessed as a person speaks, a procedure that requires more time and money to complete than in the case of machine-scored tests.…

Some insights into the development of an eleventh grade test of "adult functional competency" are provided. The evolution of the test from its first mention to its translation into a test item pool is traced. An attempt is made to identify some of the instructional, measurement, and legal implications inherent in various decisions which…

Intended to assist those working in the field of occupational competency testing, this report summarizes major milestones in the history of competency measurement in vocational education and overviews the current state of the art. To provide an orientation to the environment that stimulated the current interest in occupational competency testing,…

A mathematical competencies test was given to adult college students. Mean test scores on the mathematical competencies test were compared for the categories of age, sex, occupation, mathematical background and number of years since a mathematics course was taken. Findings indicated that age, sex and mathematical course background of the adult…

Chapter 6 of a book on school law attempts to identify and examine a few of the legal problems raised by minimum competency programs, which make successful performance on a standardized test a condition for receipt of a high school diploma. The three areas where minimum competency tests are most likely to be challenged are the equal protection and…

To replace traditional methods of minimum competency testing in personnel selection, a two stage cutting score procedure is proposed. The Angoff procedure is modified so that only a subset of test items, which assess essential job related skills, are used to determine the cutting score and to identify qualifed applicants. As a measure of item…

In a study concerned with the function of test wiseness in competency testing and with the impact of question stem structure within a reading competency test, 43 fourth grade students and 38 sixth grade students were administered one form each of the experimental material. This material consisted of ten questions presented in the stylized language…

This document provides a brief review of the New York State Basic Competency Tests (BCT), Preliminary Competency Tests (PCT) and Regents Competency Tests (RCT), together with a summary of the results of the tests administered in New York City in Spring, 1979. Test requirements for 1979, 1980, and 1981 are outlined, as well as administrative…

The controversy over minimum competency assessment has special implications for the handicapped, since federal law requires that handicapped students must be afforded equal educational opportunities. Problems will arise in establishing criteria of competence and in administering minimum competency programs for students with learning disabilities.…

The Bayesian approach to setting passing scores, as proposed by Swaminathan, Hambleton, and Algina, is compared with the empirical Bayes approach to the same problem that is derived from Huynh's decision-theoretic framework. Comparisons are based on simulated data which follow an approximate beta-binomial distribution and on real test results from…

The statistical parallelism of a pair of tests equated by the P-value method was investigated, as well as the relationship between their raw scores and scores transformed by linear equating. Data were obtained from eight sections of the 1980 New Jersey Minimum Basic Skills Program; specifically, the reading and mathematics tests for each of grades…