Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons^™

The Nature Of Data Sources That Inform Decision-Making In Reading By Experienced Second-Grade Teachers, Margaret Mary Dinan Davis

Theses and Dissertations in Urban Studies

This qualitative research was designed to describe the nature of data sources that inform decision making in reading by experienced second grade teachers. Data was collected on seven subjects from multiple sources: seven, successive interviews, think alouds using videotaped lessons, classroom observations, and inspection of documents such as grade books, student work samples, report cards, and reading tests. Data analysis was accomplished by transcribing all data into a qualitative data base (Padilla, 1991). Text chunks were tagged and filtered by data source. Categories such as oral language and comparison of data were added as they emerged during analysis. The most …

Paideia In Chattanooga: A Case Study, Carmen Jenkins

Honors Theses

This research investigated the educational reform effort based on Mortimer Adler's Paideia Proposal (Adler, 1982) as implemented in two Chattanooga City Public Schools, Chattanooga school for the Arts and Sciences (CSAS) and Chattanooga School for the Liberal Arts (CSLA). Extensive research of local newspaper files to gather historical data concerning the proposal's implementation, ethnographic interviews with community leaders and educators involved in the reform process, and an evaluation of the model were included in the study. Qualitative data to date indicated that reform efforts at CSAS, the pilot school for the Paideia project, and CSLA, the sister school, have been …

Acer Newsletter No. 82 March 1995, Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer)

ACER Newsletter archive 1969-1999

No abstract provided.

Chasing The Wolves From The Schoolhouse Door, Theodore J. Kowalski

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Interestingly, warnings about the deterioration of America's schoolhouses have generated only limited public reaction. State legislators, governors, federal officials, and corporate executives — all of whom were exceedingly eager to react to earlier education reports such as A Nation at Risk- have been amazingly silent. Where are the legislative proposals to eradicate this problem? Where are the creative ideas from managers in private industry? Where are the calls for establishing a national commission to address this crisis? The most likely response to these questions is that the cost of solving the problem is simply too great. Accordingly, neither those who …

Section One: Purposes And Policy Issues

Licensure Testing: Purposes, Procedures, and Practices

No Content

Section Two: Overview Of The Procedures For Developing A Licensure Examination, James C. Impara

Licensure Testing: Purposes, Procedures, and Practices

There are a variety of strategies that may be employed in the development of a licensure examination. The following list of activities illustrates typical procedures. Depending on the needs and conditions of the particular occupation, certain variations in specific activities may take place or changes in the sequence may be appropriate. In addition to the procedures listed, many decisions will be made that may add activities. For example, the decision to use a computerized item bank or to enter into a computerized adaptive testing format will require procedures in addition to those described briefly below.

1. Conducting a job (or …

6. Developing And Using Clinical Examinations, Jimmie C. Fortune, Theodore R. Cromack

Licensure Testing: Purposes, Procedures, and Practices

INTRODUCTION

Generally, clinical examinations for licensing (sometimes called performance tests) involve the candidate completing one or more tasks (in licensing this is thought of as "services for a client") that have been selected from the supervised practice Gob analysis) of an occupation or profession. The clinical examination may exist in contexts (occupations) that do not require client interactions. Such contexts include building trades, automobile repair, accounting, etc. The tasks may range from fixing brakes, to preparing a body for burial, to wiring a house, or auditing a set of business interactions.

Other contexts require the candidate to perform services or …

7. Basic Psychometric Issues In Licensure Testing, Howard W. Stoker, James C. Impara

Licensure Testing: Purposes, Procedures, and Practices

INTRODUCTION

The number of people in the United States who carry some responsibility for the writing of examination questions and the construction of tests is unknown. In the Preface to The Construction and Use of Achievement Examinations, published by the American Council on Education in 1936, the authors indicated that the number probably exceeded a million. That number has certainly grown in the past 60 years. Questions are posed to students by teachers at all levels of education; the Armed Forces have people whose job it is to construct tests which are used in the promotion of personnel; over …

4. Practice Analysis: Building The Foundation For Validity, Joan E. Knapp, Lenora G. Knapp

Licensure Testing: Purposes, Procedures, and Practices

INTRODUCTION

A review of the literature associated with job analysis reveals two extremes of opinion as represented by the following provocative quotes:

Historically job analysis has been a relatively soporific area of industrial and organizational psychology, characterized by neither heated controversy nor prominent visibility in the research literature. (Harvey, 1991, p. 71)

Validation was once a priestly mystery, a ritual behind the scenes with the professional elite as witness and judge. Today it is a public spectacle combining the attraction of chess and mud wrestling. (Cronbach, 1988, p. 3)

Both our evaluation of practice analysis research and our professional experience …

5. Systematic Item Writing And Test Construction, Anthony Laduca, Steven M. Downing, Thomas R. Henzel

Licensure Testing: Purposes, Procedures, and Practices

Standardized objective testing remains the most popular mode of licensure testing. Even where other types of tests are incorporated, it is often the case that they are provided as complimentary to standardized, multiple-choice (MC) tests. Moreover, scoring theories and standard-setting procedures have been developed over the years in the context of standardized MC testing. At the same time, critics have pointed to limitations of contemporary MC testing practices, including lack of fidelity to real-life challenges and emphasis on recall of factual minutiae. In our view, testing professionals should make conscientious attempts to modify test development procedures so as to address …

3. Policy Issues With Psychometric Implications, Michael Rosenfeld, Richard F. J. Tannenbaum, Scott Wesley

Licensure Testing: Purposes, Procedures, and Practices

Testing candidates with disabilities, testing repeaters, and coaching involve issues of fairness, the validity of the inferences made from test scores, and protection of the public. Licensing boards must develop policies to deal with each of these issues. It is interesting to note that although all three are of concern to licensing agencies, little of the research on these topics has been conducted in licensure settings. This chapter discusses the results of research conducted on each topic, considers the psychometric implications for policy of each, and suggests steps licensing boards can take when formulating policy.

TESTING CANDIDATES WITH DISABILITIES IN …

Section Three Emerging Practices

Licensure Testing: Purposes, Procedures, and Practices

No abstract provided.

8. Item Banking, Betty A. Bergstrom, Richard C. Gershon

Licensure Testing: Purposes, Procedures, and Practices

Item banks developed by licensure agencies range from a collection of items stored on index cards to highly sophisticated electronic databases. Regardless of the storage mechanism, most banks contain items that have been organized and referenced according to procedures established by the licensure agency. This chapter outlines useful practices for building and maintaining a computerized item bank. We address storage of item text, graphics, and statistical history. We deal with the creation of paper-and-pencil and computerized tests from an item bank and the use of Item Response Theory (lRT) to calibrate and equate item banks. New directions in item banking …

12. Computerized Testing In Licensure, C. David Vale

Licensure Testing: Purposes, Procedures, and Practices

Computerized testing has come out of the laboratory and into the field. By rough estimates, over a million licensure and certification examinations are currently given by computer each year, and the number is rising. Computerized testing is not appropriate for every application, however. Computerized tests always result in significantly greater direct costs than paper-and-pencil tests. To justify their use, a computerized test must result in a net dollar saving. This means that something in the process of computerization must offer a cost reduction that more than offsets the direct cost of computerization. The purpose of this chapter is to identify …

9. Differential Item Functioning In Licensure Tests, Barbara S. Plake

Licensure Testing: Purposes, Procedures, and Practices

When test scores are used to make important decisions, as is typically the case with licensure tests, the validity of test score interpretations is extremely critical. The validity of the decision (e.g., pass or fail the licensure examination) relies heavily on the validity of the test score that is used in making the licensure decision. So, although validity is always a critical component in test score interpretation, it has increased importance when the score is used in high-stakes decision situations such as licensure testing.

Issues in validity for licensure tests have been addressed in Chapter 4 of this volume. The …

13. Future Psychometric Practices In Licensure Testing, Steven S. Nettles

Licensure Testing: Purposes, Procedures, and Practices

New technologies continue to emerge each year, and influence testing practices. In particular, in the last 10 years the personal computer has evolved from a curious and minimally useful tool to an indispensable partner in many certification and licensure testing programs. It is involved in every aspect- including candidate scheduling, test assembly, test administration, test scoring and analysis, and score reporting. Initially, it is used to determine the content to be included in the job analysis instrument, and later, to analyze the returned surveys. After the job analysis is completed and test specifications prepared, it can be used to bank …

11. Equating, Judy A. Shea, John J. Norcini

Licensure Testing: Purposes, Procedures, and Practices

INTRODUCTION

Testing programs nearly always need examinations that measure the same thing, but are composed of different questions (i .e., alternate forms of the same test). When different questions are used, however, there is no assurance that scores on the forms are equivalent; different sets of items might be easier or harder and, therefore, produce higher or lower scores. Equating is used to overcome this problem. Simply stated, it is the design and statistical procedure that permits scores on one form of a test to be comparable to scores on an alternate form.

A hypothetical example will help explain why …

Licensure Testing: Purposes, Procedures, And Practices [Complete Work], James C. Impara, Linda L. Murphy

Licensure Testing: Purposes, Procedures, and Practices

Licensure Testing: Purposes, Procedures, and Practices (374 pages)

Copyright © 1995 by Buros Institute of Mental Measurements All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by photostat, microfilm, retrieval system, or any other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Buros Institute of Mental Measurements 135 Bancroft Hall University of Nebraska-Lincoln Lincoln, NE 68588-0348

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Involving Parents Through Workshops To Promote Reading, Diane Kay Caldwell

All Graduate Projects

Three workshops were designed to assist parents in improving their children's reading development. These workshops focused on the significance of parents participating in their children's reading. The importance of reading aloud and techniques on how to do so were discussed. Specific activities parents could use to promote their children's reading, and the detrimental effects of television on developing minds were also described. The workshops were designed for parents of fourth grade children.

Family Assessment- Epilogue

Family Assessment

The previous chapters have illustrated in great depth the intricacies of family assessment. The meaning of family across cultures, the effects of emotional, physical, and mental challenges on family functioning, and the frameworks useful in defining important family constructs have all been explored.

Although there are many measures for the many constructs that have been created to capture the meaning of family interaction, most are rather exploratory or useful only with limited populations. Clinical judgement and research acumen are required to be sure valid assessments are accomplished. There are significant challenges left to meet in designing assessment programs to illuminate …

Self-Perceived Leader Behavior And Characteristics Of Black And White Chief Administrators Of Colleges And Universities: A Comparative Study, Gregory D. Epps

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study was designed to examine and compare self-perceived leader behavior and characteristics of black and white chief administrators of colleges and universities. The population for this study included chief administrators of the 538 four year colleges and universities, both public and private, within the 15 Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states. A randomly selected sample of 18 black and 12 white (total n=150) chief administrators was used for this study.

Data collected by the LBDQ-S focuses on two types of self-perceived leader behavior, initiating structure and consideration. The demographic questionnaire collected data which included respondents, race, gender, age, years …

Predictors Of College Choice For First-Time College Students At American Colleges And Universities Associated With The Church Of Christ, Robert W. Stephens Jr.

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this study was to rate the significance of selected factors that influence college choice for first-year students who chose to attend, during fall, 1994, 1 of 10 American liberal arts colleges and universities associated with the Churches of Christ. This study further evaluated the relationship of the rating of these factors with specific student demographic data and the timing of the college choice decision.

Completed surveys were received from 2,677 respondents representing 76% rate of return. According to the results, the most influential college choice factors were the college's religious affiliation, academic reputation, job placement reputation, offer …

Koinonia, Marcia B. Baxter Magolda, Rob Thompson, Becky Leithold

Koinonia

The Epistemological Development of College Students, Marcia B. Baxter Magolda

President's Corner, The Editor's Disk

CoCCA: Marketing Your Student Leadership Experience & Hot Ideas

Making Your Own RA Manual

Great Lakes Regional Conference

Institutional Characteristics 1995-96, Uno Office Of Institutional Effectiveness

IPEDS Institutional Characteristics

IPEDS Institutional Characteristics Annual report contains the following information:

• Admissions requirements
• Institutional price/cost data for full-time, first-time, degree/certificate-seeking undergraduate students
• Tuition and required fees by level or program
• Room and board charges

Family Assessment- Complete Work, Jane Close Conoley, Linda L. Murphy, Elaine Buterick Werth

Family Assessment

Assessing families suggests both interesting measurement issues

and significant clinical applications. This volume is a collection of

important papers to explore the topic in some depth.

Some of these papers were first given at the Buros-Nebraska

Symposium on Testing and Measurement. Others have been written

especially for this volume. All are outstanding examples of scholarship

in this very thorny area of psychological measurement beyond the

individual. We commissioned papers that examined the history of

measurement with families and to cover family issues that are of

particular interest to both clinicians and researchers. Overall, the authors have tackled very big issues. …

9. Assessment Issues In Families Of Individuals With Disabilities, Marjorie Ann Padula

Family Assessment

Mortality in mothers and infants has been reduced as medical science has advanced. The ability to extend the lives of individuals born with disabilities, or who become injured later in life, has steadily increased with advances in science. As a result, the existing population of individuals with special needs has grown, thereby increasing the numbers of families affected by a disability. In the past, individuals with severe disabilities may have been institutionalized. Now, although institutions still exist, greater numbers of individuals with disabilities are likely to be cared for in the home. What effect does this have on families and …

Preface- Family Assessment, Jane Close Conoley

Family Assessment

Assessing families suggests both interesting measurement issues and significant clinical applications. This volume is a collection of important papers to explore the topic in some depth.

Some of these papers were first given at the Buros-Nebraska Symposium on Testing and Measurement. Others have been written especially for this volume. All are outstanding examples of scholarship in this very thorny area of psychological measurement beyond the individual. We commissioned papers that examined the history of measurement with families and to cover family issues that are of particular interest to both clinicians and researchers.

The book is divided in three sections. Drs. …

Section Two Investigation Of Critical Elements Of Family Dynamics

Family Assessment

This section presents information on the assessment of family constructs that are of interest to most families. Dr. James Bray tackles an area of family issues in which some confusion reigns. Bray addresses the dilemma of the multiple processes and constructs involved with family health with definitions of the most salient features of family functioning. These include communication, conflict, problem solving, emotional bonding, affect, roles, differentiation and individuation, triangulation, intimacy, personal authority in the family system, and family stress. Bray identifies valid and reliable self-report measures available to assess each construct and future research directions for the study of family …

Section Three: Assessment Of Special Challenges Faced By Families

Family Assessment

The previous two sections of the volume described family assessment related to the usual issues faced by families. In this final section, the papers are concerned with assessment approaches with families facing particular challenges. Chapters concerning divorce, aggressive children, and the effects of a child with a disability on family and child functioning comprise the third section.

Dr. Paul Amato notes that empirical investigation into the impact of divorce on children lacks the theoretical base that would provide a solid foundation for future research. Amato suggest that current research includes too many dependent variables which results in weak outcomes. Studies …

I'D Like To Use Essay Tests, But..., Marilla Svinicki

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

The "Writing Across the Curriculum" movement of several years ago urged instructors in all departments to help their students learn to write more coherent prose, whether it be in papers or essay tests, not just to improve student writing but to encourage more complex thinking. Having to explain an answer in prose format requires more from the student in the way of deep processing of the material than is usually the case on objectively scorable exam questions.

Many instructors across campus subscribed to these ideas enthusiastically, but were stymied when it came to putting them into practice in their classes. …