Comparison of two test methods for VIS: paper-pencil test and CAT*

This paper examines listening comprehension skills of visually impaired students (VIS) using computerised adaptive testing (CAT) and reader-assisted paper-pencil testing (raPPT) and student views about them. Explanatory mixed method design was used in this study. Sample is comprised of 51 VIS, in 7th and 8th grades. 9 of these students were interviewed for determining student views about tests. Results indicated that scores obtained from CAT are significantly lower than scores obtained from raPPT. Additionally, a positive and high correlation was found between scores of CAT and raPPT. This result suggests that similar ability estimations were made by CAT and raPPT. Another finding is CAT made more reliable predictions, and was completed in shorter duration using fewer items. In qualitative part, student views were gathered through interviews and content analysis revealed three themes as technical features, test features, and psychological effects. In general, students reported positive views about CAT. VIS prefer CAT due to its listening/control options, shorter test durations, clarity of reading, and fairness of test, elimination of dependency to reader. Study provides implications for test developers and test-users to consider CAT as a multi-accommodation for VIS through its advantages.     

A validity study of two preschool screening instruments: The LAP-D and DIAL-R

This study compared the Developmental Indicators for the Assessment of Learning—Revised (DIAL-R) and the Learning Accomplishment Profile—Diagnostic (LAP-D) for a sample of 121 children in an urban Head Start program. To examine validity, guidelines suggested by the multitrait-multimethod model (MTMM) were employed. The results indicated significant correlations between like-named scales, providing evidence for convergent validity. However, the within-method correlations often equaled or exceeded the validity coefficients, as did the between-method correlations of dissimilar scales. Thus the simultaneous requirements of both convergent and discriminant validity were not met. From the viewpoint of professional practices, the results suggest that profiles cannot be interpreted with confidence. New instruments and procedures are needed that reflect research and theory associated with the principles of psychosocial Change.     

歌唱与口头陈述两种口语测试方式的内容效度比较

大学英语课程是大学生的一门必修课。大学英语课程教学中要求大学生应能在学习过程中用英语交流,能就日常话题用英语进行交谈和作简短发言。本文旨在通过歌唱和口头陈述两种口语测试方式提高学生学习兴趣和评估学生口语表达能力,并从内容效度上进行分析比较。由此得知,歌唱的内容效度比口头陈述的低且无法反映学生真实的口语水平,应当采取口头陈述进行口语测试。     

Qualitative differences in concrete and formal operational tasks

Five concrete and five formal tasks were administered to 64 second-, fourth-,sixth, and eighth-grade subjects. A significant grade effect (p ? .01) but no significant sex effect or interaction was found. A cluster analysis indicated that four of the five formal tasks grouped together, two of the five concrete tasks grouped together, and the rest of the tasks remained isolated. These results were interpreted as supporting both Piaget's qualitative hypothesis and the structural characteristics of the concrete and formal stages.     

On the validity of useless tests

A misconception exists that validity may refer only to the interpretation of test scores and not to the uses of those scores. The development and evolution of validity theory illustrate test score interpretation was a primary focus in the earliest days of modern testing, and that validating interpretations derived from test scores remains essential today. However, test scores are not interpreted and then ignored; rather, their interpretations lead to actions. Thus, a modern definition of validity needs to describe the validation of test score interpretations as a necessary, but insufficient, step en route to validating the uses of test scores for their intended purposes. To ignore test use in defining validity is tantamount to defining validity for ‘useless’ tests. The current definition of validity stipulated in the 2014 version of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing properly describes validity in terms of both interpretations and uses, and provides a sufficient starting point for validation.     

英语口语测试的信度与效度分析

英语口语考试的信度和效度受口试形式、评分标准和考官素质等多方面因素的影响。提高英语口试的效度和信度,需坚持英语口试形式与内容的统一,设计出科学、客观并具有可操作性的评分标准。高信度与效度的英语口语测试对教学具有积极的反拨作用。     

Cows moo softly: acquiring and retrieving a formal operations schema

In the last decade science educators have made a number of attempts to teach formal operations. Among the most interesting of these attempts are approaches in which explicit rules for formal tasks are given to students. The results have been inconsistent. This study attempts to develop a rule‐based instructional strategy for teaching the controlling variables schema. The strategy focuses on elaboration, in contrast with previous methods which have focused on organization. The strategy was implemented in 5th grade classrooms. An evaluation employing open‐ended assessment instruments and a quasi‐experimental design found a substantial advantage for the treatment group. The results are discussed in terms of contemporary theories of memory.     

A method for assessing the treatment validity of tests in special education

Several tests in special education are used as a basis for describing education treatment. When tests are used in this fashion, it is necessary to assess their treatment validity, i.e., to assess the degree to which they enable educators to accurately prescribe an effective treatment. This article outlines a procedure for estimating the treatment validity of a test and uses two tests as examples.     

Convergent validity of group tests of cognitive development

This study was designed to investigate the convergent validity of individual clinical task interviews as presented by Piaget and Inhelder paired with three widely used group tests of cognitive development. These tests are designed to assess the acquisition of cognitive abilities. The three group test raw scores paired with summed raw scores on four concrete-formal task interviews yielded the following Pearson product-moment correlations: Reasoning Test (Ankney and Joyce), 0.43; Logical Reasoning Test (Burney), 0.61; Classroom Test of Formal Operations (Lawson), 0.37. The raw data was then ranked into cognitive level groups and presented on contingency tables. The following contingency coefficients were determined: Logical Reasoning Test, 0.52; Logical Reasoning Test (adjusted), 0.61; Classroom Test of Formal Operations, 0.50. This study reflects that the Reasoning Test tends to indicate lower cognitive levels of subjects when paired with summed scores on the clinical task interviews, whereas the Logical Reasoning Test and the Classroom Test of Formal Operations tend to indicate higher cognitive levels of subjects when paired with summed scores on the clinical task interviews. In each case the correlations do not appear to be sufficiently strong to warrant selection or categorization of an individual student based on his/her test performance.     

A comparison of concrete and formal science instruction upon science achievement and reasoning ability of sixth grade students

Several recent studies suggest concrete learners make greater gains in student achievement and in cognitive development when receiving concrete instruction than when receiving formal instruction. This study examined the effect of concrete and formal instruction upon reasoning and science achievement of sixth grade students. Four intact classes of sixth grade students were randomly selected into two treatment groups; concrete and formal. The treatments were patterned after the operational definitions published by Schneider and Renner (1980). Pretest and posttest measures were taken on the two dependent variables; reasoning, measured with Lawson's Classroom Test of Formal Reasoning, and science achievement, measured with seven teacher made tests covering the following units in a sixth grade general science curriculum: Chemistry, Physics, Earth Science, Cells, Plants, Animals, and Ecology. Analysis of covariance indicated significantly higher levels (better than 0.05 and in some cases 0.01) of performance in science achievement and cognitive development favoring the concrete instruction group and a significant gender effect favoring males.     

The formal setting as context for cognitive activities. An empirical study of arithmetic operations under conflicting premisses for communication

The general concern of the present article is to contribute to an understanding of the contextual determination of cognitive activities. More specifically, the focus of the empirical research reported has been to study how pupils define and deal with cognitive tasks in situations that are recognised as pedagogical in character. Within the context of their everyday mathematics teaching, 206 twelve year old primary school pupils were given work sheets containing elementary arithmetic problems. The experimental treatment consisted of introducing (through headings and instructions) pedagogical definitions of problems that were in conflict with the nature of the problems themselves. The results indicate that the predefinitions of cognitive activities typical of educational contexts have a strong impact on the way problems are dealt with. Clear differences could be discerned between groups at different achievement levels in the extent to which the cues present in pedagogical contexts were used in defining the problem. A crucial aspect of what are conventionally conceived as differences in mathematical ability seems, judging from the present results, to have more to do with the capacity to decipher ambiguous communicative situations than with the mastery of a mathematical algorithm per se.     

A validity study of the Kinetic school drawing technique

Kinetic School Drawings were obtained from 100 fifth-grade students. The drawings were analyzed along a number of dimensions thought to measure “negative” affect. Significant correlations with academic achievement were found for a number of measures, and the results of a stepwise multiple regression were significant. In general, the study supported the validity of the technique.