The article reviews Consumer's Guide to Tests in Print, noting its purposes (to provide objective information about technical characteristics of standardized tests); criteria for evaluating standardizaton, reliability, and validity; and its rating system based on evaluations of selected review panel members. (CL)

Carried out four experiments in which male and female undergraduates (N=384) completed the Beck Depression Inventory under conditions ranging from absolute anonymity to a face-to-face interview. Results showed no evidence that depression is more severe or common in females. Responses appeared essentially unaffected by method of administration.…

Addresses the issues of whether test scores are affected by the prior availability of the items on a test. Concludes that, while disclosing items significantly affects test scores, the magnitude of the disclosure effect drecreases with an increase in the size of the disclosed pool. (EKN)

Concludes that The London Procedure does not reflect contemporary research in the fields of literacy acquisition and learning disabilities. (AEA)

The Locus of Control Inventory for the Deaf (LCID), consisting of a 23-item Likert-like scale, and two commonly used scales to assess locus of control in hearing persons were administered to 174 deaf freshman students. Intercorrelation findings demonstrated greater soundness of the LCID as compared with the other scales. (Author)

This article illustrates the use of generalizability theory in special education to estimate the reliability of a measure when there is more than one source of error in the universe of inference and how the effects from changing the number of items and/or raters can be evaluated. (Author)

Impression marking of English Language essay and summary questions by pairs of examiners is shown, as expected, to be more reliable than single marking. Given the limited statistical information available, it is concluded that pairing of examiners can as well be done by random or quasi-random means as by attempts at calculated matching. (Editor/RK)

Recently, an evaluation procedure, behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS), has been developed that attempts to capture performance in multidimensional, behavior-specific terms. Article reviews and evaluates the research on BARS and suggests new directions for future research. (Author/RK)

Two IRT-based procedures to estimate test reliability for a certification exam that used both adaptive (via a MST model) and non-adaptive design were considered in this study. Both procedures rely on calibrated item parameters to estimate error variance. In terms of score variance, one procedure (Method 1) uses the empirical ability distribution…

This collection consists of six papers, each dealing with some aspects of reliability and performance testing. Each paper has an abstract, and each contains its own references. Papers include: (1) "Using Reliabilities To Make Decisions" (Deborah J. Harris); (2) "Conditional Standard Errors, Reliability, and Decision Consistency…

After presenting a general linear model as a framework for discussion, this paper reviews five methodology errors that occur in educational research: (1) the use of stepwise methods; (2) the failure to consider in result interpretation the context specificity of analytic weights (e.g., regression beta weights, factor pattern coefficients,…

This study was designed to explore age and sex differences in self concept across a broad age span and with fairly large populations utilizing a common for all Ss. (Author/RK)

This study determined reliability of the Boehm Basic Concept Test (designed to assist the primary teacher assess basic conceptual knowledge) for rural kindergarten and first grade children. They found the rural reliability to be less than that reported for urban samples especially for middle and upper class children. The reduced reliability was…