In two trials, subjects completed the Depression Adjective Checklist as they felt, or were instructed to "fake good,""fake bad," or "fake average." Discussed findings for "fake bad" and "fake good" in terms of ability of an examiner to detect the manipulative set through grossly deviant scores.…

This study assessed effects of response climate by examining effects of an additional testing experience on the conservation of number performance of 4- and 5-year-old lower socioeconomic status children (N=98). Results indicated significantly higher conservation of number performance scores for both males and females. (Author)

This program of research has three general thrusts. First, the relations between motivation and achievement performance were studied across children of various sociocultural backgrounds including lower- and middle- class white, black, and hispanic children. Motivational test bias was found to be strong for students of all sociocultural…

The role of testing in American education is becoming increasingly important in grouping students for educational purposes. This article reviews practices adopted by educators or administrators to improve student test scores. Stopgap measures for improving standardized test scores include (1) switching to easier tests; (2) eliminating certain…

"Test preparation" activities can range from simple practice to in-depth instruction, but most of these activities use some form of test familiarization, drill and practice with feedback, training in strategies for specific item types, and general test-taking, subject-matter review, and skill development exercises. Two experiments were…

This paper describes the development and investigation of a new approach to determining the existence of bias in multiple-choice test scores. Previous work in this area has concentrated almost exclusively on bias attributable to specific test items or to differences in test score distributions across racial or ethnic groups. In contrast, the…

The objective of this study was to investigate differential tendencies to avoid guessing as a function of three variables: (1) lingual-cultural-group; (2) gender; and (3) examination year. The Psychometric Entrance Test (PET) for universities in Israel was used, which is administered in Hebrew, Arabic, English, French, Spanish, and Russian. The…

A special course was designed to aid undergraduate subjects in preparing for the Graduate Record Examination--Quantitative (GRE-Q). The course included a short one-session discussion (Anxiety Reduction Session) of the GRE and its uses, and four sessions devoted to specific instruction in the basic mathematics required for the test and strategies…