The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is an integral measure of academic progress over time. It is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what our nation's students know and can do in various subjects such as civics, mathematics, reading, science, technology and engineering literacy, U.S. history, and…

ACT reporting categories and ACT Readiness Ranges are new features added to the ACT score reports starting in fall 2016. For each reporting category, the number correct score, the maximum points possible, the percent correct, and the ACT Readiness Range, along with an indicator of whether the reporting category score falls within the Readiness…

Why has large-scale standardised testing attracted such a bad press? Why has pedagogic benefit to be derived from test results been downplayed? The paper investigates this question by first surveying the pros and cons of testing in the literature, and goes on to examine educators' responses to standardised, large-scale tests in a sample of low…

In the last few decades high-stakes testing has become more political than educational. The Districts within Arizona are bound by the mandates of both AZ LEARNS and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. At the time of this writing, both legislative mandates relied on the Arizona Instrument for Measuring Standards (AIMS) as State Tests for gauging…

A well-established principle in the literature on learning, which maintains that variability of practice enhances long-term retention, served as the foundation of a summer program intended to ameliorate reading skills in incoming freshmen. During a 4-week period, students received reading instruction in the context of four areas: humanities,…

Alternatives to the standard statewide assessment often are necessary for valid measurement of students with significant disabilities. These alternate assessments must be carefully developed and evaluated with respect to generally accepted psychometric standards. Ideally, these measures should be sensitive to growth and scaled to state tests that…

The administration of the National Test-Equating Study in Reading is described as part of a symposium on the study. After contacts with each of the State Departments of Education, district and LEA superintendents were asked to consider the participation of randomly selected schools within their jurisdictions. Upon receipt of approval, school…

In a study designed to assess effects of administering the Metropolitan Reading Test (MRT) in Spanish versus English, 100 Puerto Rican kindergarten pupils were randomly split into two groups. The MRT was administered in English to one group and in a Spanish translation to the other group. The group who took the Spanish version significantly…

This study investigated the hypothesis that sex biases (defined as disproportionate references to one sex) in a reading passage and on a comprehension test would lead to differential performance by 120 male and female undergraduates. An analysis of variance revealed no significant main effects or interactions. (Author/CTM)

This paper reviews literacy and literacy assessment in America, in relation to the various National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading assessments. Literacy can be defined and assessed only in relation to literacy demands. A current concept of literacy distinguishes between reading comprehension as an outcome of lexical access and…

This book is conceived as a definitive expose and practitioner's manual of readability measurement, with special reference to French language readability. Proceeding from a detailed outline of research on readability from 1923 to the present, the book confronts such issues as external criteria used for validation of readability formulas, choice of…

Examines the relationship between a journey and a destination in terms of the educational experience, where learning is the journey but test scores have become the destination. Focuses on the loss of curriculum areas that are untested in favor of the destination of math and reading scores. Asserts that middle school students deserve both measured…

Returns from the Survey of Testing questionnaire, which was mailed to each testing director in the Great Cities Program, are summarized. The Survey includes: 1) information concerning test standardization; 2) information concerning the use of test results; 3) all tests currently used in the Great City Schools. (MS)

The twofold objective of this book is to enable the teacher of English to speakers of other languages both to improve his own classroom measures and to make sound assessments of standardized tests which he may from time to time be asked to select, administer, and interpret. Chapters 1 and 2 introduce the general purposes and methods of language…

This paper reports on a pilot study conducted to determine the possible use of the cloze procedure as a substitute measure of achievement in a second-year Spanish culture and civilization class. Twenty students enrolled in a third-semester Spanish class at the University of Colorado were simultaneously given multiple choice tests and cloze tests…