Measurement specialists and instructional personnel can join forces to create tests that are valid indicators of important skills and are instructionally attainable targets for teachers. Such tests can revolutionize education. (Author/IRT)

Provides seven suggestions for enhancing student performance and for reliably documenting student achievement through the use of carefully developed criterion-referenced measures. (JOW)

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how instructors can prepare criterion-referenced tests that will meet the student assessment needs of vocational-technical education. (SK)

Suggests that there are major issues involved in using criterion-referenced reading tests that are unclear or unresolved, including their place in the system of teaching reading, their validity, their reliability, and how cut-off scores are set and evaluated. (TJ)

Criterion-referenced performance tests (CRPT) provide a realistic method for objectively measuring task proficiency against predetermined attainment standards. This article explains the procedures of constructing, validating, and scoring CRPTs and includes a checklist for a welding test. (JOW)

Discusses the use of the SAT score for placement into college-level developmental skills programs and the appropriateness of using this type of norm referenced testing in placing students. Criterion referenced tests are suggested for assessing specific student skills necessary for college work. (RAO)

Argues for the establishment of a criterion-referenced testing program constructed of test items created by the district's teachers and geared to the district's curriculum objectives. (IRT)

Behaviorist, competency-based approaches to assessment should be replaced by the application of latent trait theory, a relaxation of "testing," and the use of expert judgment of those involved in vocational education. Examples from the construction industry illustrate the procedure. (SK)

To realize the dividends from the relationship between testing and teaching, teacher and administrator preparation and inservice training must be redesigned so that professionals are equipped to interpret results from norm-referenced and criterion-referenced tests designed by experts. (JOW)

The author began his education career committed to curriculum, not measurement. After years of using teacher-made and standardized tests as instructional afterthoughts, he recognized the superiority of criterion-referenced testing and the influence of high-stakes testing on instruction. He then became involved with developing such tests on a…

Rebuffs Leslie Maclean and Harvey Goldstein's claims that the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Reading Proficiency Scale is unidimensional. Critics' confusion may stem from failing to separate what a test measures from a score's usefulness. The Lexile Reading Scale should be integrated with the NAEP scale. Includes eight…

A criterion-based strategy to evaluate student performance in computer application courses requires modification of evaluation tools with each technological change. Students benefit by not competing for grades and there is more consistency in student assessment across courses and semesters. (Author/JOW)

Some general questions about minimum competency tests are discussed, and various methods of setting standards are reviewed with major attention devoted to those methods used for dichotomizing a continuum. Methods reviewed under the heading of Absolute Judgments of Test Content include Nedelsky's, Angoff's, Ebel's, and Jaeger's. These methods are…

Offers practical tips on how teachers can determine whether classroom tests are actually measuring what they are designed to measure. Discusses criterion-related validity, construct validity, and content validity. Demonstrates how to determine the degree of content validity a particular test may have for a particular course or unit. (Author/DH)

The paper discusses the key criteria of good language tests: practicality, validity, and reliability.