Findings are reported from a series of comprehensive and detailed empirical investigations that evaluated four different teacher certification paper-and-pencil tests through a typical content validation method and from three distinct and independent empirical validation studies of these devices. These latter studies can be understood as providing…

Most human gradings of essays are holistic, or "overall." Therefore, Project Essay Grade (PEG), an attempt to develop computerized grading of essays, has concentrated most of its research on overall grading. It has successfully simulated human judges. However, since computer grading is less expensive than human grading, PEG has also…

This paper reports on an experiment examining the consequences of assessing kindergarten and first-grade students' academic achievement in group versus individualized assessment settings. Students (n=442) blocked by classroom and grade level were randomly assigned to one of two assessment modes: a small group setting with 8 other students from…

This study examined the relationship between school scheduling format and average composite scores on the ACT Assessment after controlling for lifestyle factors, gender, school enrollment levels, number of examinees, and years under the scheduling model. The participants were 38,089 high schools seniors in 568 public high schools in Iowa and…

Interest in the effectiveness of test coaching has prompted many studies, almost all of which have been directed toward coaching's effect on results of the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT). The focus of this research was to investigate whether preparation for the American College Test (ACT) provided by professional coaches would raise the scores…

In a follow-up to findings published by H. Stumpf and J. Stanley (1996), the gender-related differences in enrollment in and scores on the College Board Achievement (SAT II) and Advanced Placement (AP) tests were studied. Differences in scores turned out to be rather stable from 1982 (for the Achievement tests) and 1984 (for the AP tests) through…

Practicing physicians must assess their own knowledge and skills continually to ensure that they are current with new medical procedures and advances. The ability to assess one's own performance was studied for medical students, who were asked to estimate their performance on course quizzes. An item that asked students to estimate their correct…

The perceptions of various educators (N=495) of the effectiveness of practices related to the dissemination of the results from their schools' standardized testing programs were collected and analyzed. Contrary to what might have been expected from prior research, these educators rated the effectiveness of their schools' performance in…

This study employed a multiple regression to predict examinees' differential performance when tested by familiar and unfamiliar examiners. Subjects were 32 preschool and school-age handicapped children, each of whom had been tested on the Clinical Evaluation of Language Functions, once by a familiar and once by an unfamiliar tester, within a…

A school system's testing program can be used as a tool in curriculum development and instructional improvement if the tests match the goals and objectives of the instructional program and what is taught in the classroom. Test-taking skills should be taught so that the test will accurately reflect certain knowledge. Test results should be an…

In Holland, it recently has been recognized that minority students are underrepresented in schools for learning disabled (LD) and are overrepresented in schools for the educable mentally retarded (EMR). In 1983, a study was begun in Rotterdam to determine why some students of Surinamese, Turkish, and Moroccan origin were placed in schools for the…

Upon learning that a form of the Sequential Tests of Educational Progress was incorrectly distributed to an unidentified number of high school students along with an answer sheet pregridded with an alternate test form, the Austin Independent School District performed the following research analyses: (1) scored the tests using the key for each…

The recommendation is made that Elementary Secondary Education Act Title I data should be subjected to quality control procedures at local, state, and national levels. An industrial quality control model may provide a useful approach, particularly at the state level. A brief description of the Title I Evaluation and Reporting System is given,…

This study attempted to understand and define the concepts of creativity and self-actualization and to ascertain, first, if creative people are highly self-actualized, and second, if self-actualized people are highly creative. Four tests (Personal Orientation Inventory, Torrence Tests of Creative Thinking, Similes Preference Inventory, Lafferty's…

A battery of spatial, linguistic, and mathematical tests was administered to tenth- and twelfth-grade students to examine the relation between sex differences on particular spatial tests and sex differences on particular mathematical problems. The sex difference magnitude was not diminished by taking spatial and linguistic scores into account.…