Because test scores reflect not only a student's knowledge in a given area, but also his or her familiarity with cues present in the test, and because tests are so prevalent and important in schools, there is a great need to teach test wiseness skills. It is ethical to do so if no material from the final test is included. Certain principles and…

This paper reviews the application of the EM Algorithm to marginal maximum likelihood estimation of parameters in the latent class model and extends the algorithm to the case where there are monotone homogeneity constraints on the item parameters. It is shown that the EM algorithm can be used to obtain marginal maximum likelihood estimates of the…

The efficacy of the random digit dialing method in telephone surveys was examined. Random digit dialing (RDD) generates a pure random sample and provides the advantage of including unlisted phone numbers, as well as numbers which are too new to be listed. Its disadvantage is that it generates a major proportion of nonworking and business…

Form level is a major element in the scoring and interpretation of Rorschach responses. Exner's 1974 text and 1976 comprehensive system workbook provided helpful norms and scoring conventions for determining form quality, but its 1985 revision appeared to lead to generally lower levels of form quality. To examine this clinical impression, the…

Self-report, pre/post testing is a frequently employed measure of therapeutic change. To investigate whether expectation of change might be an alternative explanation to the scale shift explanation of response shift bias in a self-report measure, a two-session assertiveness training intervention for college women was evaluated under manipulated…

This inquiry was conducted to examine influences on perceptions of survey subjects regarding ideographic characteristics of the subjects, incentives to enhance mail returns, and multiple requests for information. A mail survey sent to 297 former education students from a large university produced responses from 48.3% of the sample. The ideographic…

Optimal appropriateness indices, recently introduced by Levine and Drasgow (1984), provide the highest rates of detection of aberrant response patterns that can be obtained from item responses. These optimal appropriateness indices are used to study three important problems in appropriateness measurement. First, the maximum detection rates of two…

In a study to determine whether a shift from Formula scoring to Rights scoring can be made without causing a discontinuity in the test scale, the analysis of special administrations of the Scholastic Aptitude Test and Chemistry Achievement Test and the variable section of an operational form of the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) is…

An empirical comparison of the validity of three Likert-type attitude scales measuring fourth to sixth grade students' attitudes toward school integration was conducted. The content-parallel forms differed only in terms of item phrasing and were composed of either all positive, all negative or a mix of items. Different factor solutions underlying…

Effects of test-taking instruction for University of North Carolina medical students who failed end-of-year examinations were studied. The exam is compensatory and includes a number of subtests, including National Board (NB) Part I standardized subtests in pathology, pharmacology, and physiology. Students who had to repeat NB Part I subtests were…

The effects of luck and misinformation on ability of multiple-choice test scores to estimate examinee ability were investigated. Two measures of examinee ability were defined. Misinformation was shown to have little effect on ability of raw scores and a substantial effect on ability of corrected-for-guessing scores to estimate examinee ability.…

Children's tendency to answer attitude questions in a biased manner, favoring latter response alternatives when two alternatives are presented in a forced-choice format, was investigated. Using a forced-choice interview format, children were asked questions concerning their attitudes toward mathematics. Each question contained two evaluative…

As part of an effort to provide more economical methods for job-skill evaluation in the Army Enlisted Personnel Management System, a study investigated the use of television as a means of presenting test items for a sample of tests from the job field of tank crewman. The television scene provided the job setting for each item and then posed a…