Three facets of literacy measurement were examined in this study: the assessment of functional literacy with an instrument designed to reflect practical reading tasks; the effect of mode of test administration on literacy; and the relationship of literacy to sex, schooling, and traditional measures of reading. Subjects were 626 young adults…

The major purpose of this study was to provide insights into some of the reasoning strategies that may be used by students in obtaining meaning from the printed page. The study was designed to collect and analyze the verbal protocols of 11 seventh grade students involved in introspection as they responded to standardized measures of reading…

Discusses methods for obtaining verbal report data on second language test-taking strategies. Reports on the findings obtained from unpublished studies dealing with how language learners take reading tests. Concludes that there should be a closer fit between how test constructors intend their tests to be taken and how respondents actually take…

Kentucky's goal of reaching academic "proficiency" by 2014 illuminated problematic findings in 2002 reading test scores: 44.30% of middle and 71.25% of high school students scored below "proficient." The research question was, "Do teaching practices in schools with high reading achievement scores differ from teaching practices in schools with low…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the achievement gap between minority and white students by analyzing 1996 and 2000 reading and mathematics scores on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) at grades 5, 8, and 10. The focus was on score increases, the achievement gap between white and minority students, and whether or not a…

In an effort to evaluate comprehension skills with a "real world" task, students were asked to summarize and respond to an excerpt from a college freshman textbook. The written responses of a group of both high school students (n=100) and college students (n=51) were analyzed through a checklist developed to assess students'…

Two experiments were conducted to determine the emergent reading levels of elementary school students. In the first experiment, 27 third grade and 27 sixth grade students of average reading ability from rural schools in central Florida were given pretest and posttest cloze passages on science materials two readability levels above their grade…

A study involving two groups of graduate teacher-education students was undertaken to compare the effectiveness of traditional post-baccalaureate teacher training with that of a funded, innovative, selective program for liberal arts graduates known as the Lyndhurst Program. The performance of these two groups of subjects on the Pre-Professional…

A study was conducted to determine the effects of exposure to the topics included on the comprehension subtest of the Nelson-Denny Reading Test (ND), Form F, on college freshmen's performance on the test. In addition, the study investigated whether those students with background information would indicate their awareness of this knowledge on a…

This study investigated the relationship between and among the results of three types of reading assessments in the first grade: a standardized reading test (the Stanford Achievement Tests); an informal reading inventory (the Classroom Reading Inventory); and teacher judgment of student rank in reading achievement. The study included 165 first…

Recent research has revealed that informal inventories of students' abilities can be useful in reading diagnosis. Teachers need to be aware of the occasions during the school day which permit informal observation or testing of skills related to reading. The purpose of this study was to determine if classroom teachers, through informal observation…

A behavioral domain is well-defined when it is clear to both test developers and test users which categories of performance should or should not be considered for potential test items. Only those tests that are keyed to well-defined domains meet the definition of criterion-referenced tests. The greatest proliferation of criterion-referenced tests…

For many reasons, students do not always perform on tests in ways that are congruent with their true abilities or achievement levels. Problems of this sort may be especially common on Title I evaluations where the tests administered are too difficult for a large percentage of the students. Such considerations raise the questions of whether…

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…

Traditionally, reading disabled children have been characterized as suffering a performance or process deficit that prevents them from acquiring the knowledge and skills underlying proficient reading and comprehension. Such explanations raise some logical problems. Process oriented theories do not adequately explain the specificity nor address the…