A study was undertaken to examine psychometric properties of "La Prueba Riverside de Realizacion en Espanol" (PRRE) and the "Spanish Assessment of Basic Education" (SABE) when administered to a sample of limited-English-proficient students, grades 1 through 8. Spanish-language versions of both tests were used for the study.…

A self-administering test of oral language fluency was developed for use with high school teachers of French and Spanish. Interviews were also conducted, and biographical data were collected. The original instrument was based on the Foreign Language Questionnaire Pretest developed for the Survey of Global Understanding Project. The focus of the…

This text on foreign language testing provides an overview of testing principles, problems, and practices, and examines the multiple roles of the classroom teacher, as well as the construction and scoring of more formal language tests. The following types or foreign language tests are distinguished: achievement or attainment tests, proficiency…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 20 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) reading readiness, linguistic awareness, and nonverbal problem solving ability in relation to first grade reading achievement; (2) predictive accuracy of third…

The Board of Education of the Houston Independent School District, through the Volunteers in Public Schools, organized the Kindergarten Screening Project in 1970. The Kindergarten Screening Instrument (KSI) consists of five sub-scales: (1) the visual scale measures visual acuity at 20 feet; (2) the hearing scale measures the child's ability to…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 15 titles include studies dealing with the following areas: the evaluation of student writing; the assessment of the communicative competence of kindergarten children; formulas for predicting high school reading achievement; an…

The selection of second and fifth grade students for the Beginning Teacher Evaluation Study (BTES) is described. The BTES investigates teacher behaviors which relate to student achievement in reading and mathematics. From a group of teachers, schools, and districts volunteering to participate, 46 schools in 14 school districts were selected. The…

Concern was expressed for the possible effects of testing Elementary Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Title I students with norm-referenced tests that may be so difficult that many students will have scores in the chance range. The likelihood of such students obtaining equal scaled scores if they were tested with easier out-of-level tests was…

Records kept by teachers and data collected by trained observers were examined as alternatives for measuring allocated and engaged instructional time in elementary school classes. The teacher ratings of student engagement did not correlate with observer ratings of engagement, but a high correlation between teacher ratings of engagement and student…

A questionnaire designed to assess seven non-cognitive variables found to be related to college success particularly for minority students (Sedlacek and Brooks, 1976) was administered to two successive samples of incoming freshmen at the University of Maryland, College Park. The Non-Cognitive Questionnaire (NCQ) consists to two nominal items…

Activities and findings of the Statistical Analysis Group in Education (SAGE), which sought (1) to develop and validate financial and nonfinancial indicators of college or university viability and (2) to measure institutional viability of types of colleges related to federal policy goals for higher education. Development of the longitudinal file…

This report describes the instructional quality inventory (IQI), which was developed to provide quality control/evaluation procedures for the instructional system development (ISD). The ISD is described as a method used by the military to develop or revise training courses. IQI procedures are detailed in six sections. Section 1 explains the IQI…

This book addresses the question of what tests are measures of. Intelligence, achievement, and personality tests not based on empirical investigation have questionable validity. Some researchers now suspect that almost all tests given to students in all subjects, as well as general tests of intelligence and personality, are essentially language…

A paired-comparisons measure of distributive justice development, the Distributive Justice Scale (DJS), was developed and validated in four studies. Pictures were drawn to represent the different stages of distributive justice for a given dilemma and the DJS was scored by selecting the child's preferred stage via the picture comparisons for each…

In a discussion of the value of standardized tests and their implications for effective teaching, the author contends that such tests are useful in keeping those concerned with the learning process focused on the main target. In addition, standardized tests serve to (1) reveal variations in the effectiveness of different instructional procedures…