Practitioner's Guide to Assessing Intelligence and Achievement


Book Description

A complete guide to key intelligence and achievement tests and their effective use The tools used in the assessment process have changed dramatically in recent years. School and clinical psychologists need a comprehensive yet focused resource to which they can turn to learn the basics of key intelligence and achievement tests and how to use them in their assessments of children and adults. With its practical and straightforward presentation, Practitioner's Guide to Assessing Intelligence and Achievement provides that resource. Coedited by two well-known and respected scholars and researchers, Jack Naglieri and Sam Goldstein, the content in this timely book combines traditional and new conceptualizations of intelligence as well as ways to measure achievement. Truly readable and user-friendly, this book provides professionals with a single source from which to examine ability and achievement tests along the same general criteria. Each chapter is written by a leading scholar and test developer and is consistently structured for easy comparison of each test that is examined. Coverage includes: The theory underlying each test Description of each test Tips for administering and scoring each test Standardization, norms, and reliability of each scale Practical guidance for the use of each test Correspondence of each test to IDEA A practical tool designed to aid clinical psychologists in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the various tests presented, Practitioner's Guide to Assessing Intelligence and Achievement provides students and practitioners with the information they need for their practice and testing efforts to be consistent with recent updates in the field and how those assessment instruments relate to changes in the laws that influence test use.




The Myth of Achievement Tests


Book Description

Achievement tests play an important role in modern societies. They are used to evaluate schools, to assign students to tracks within schools, and to identify weaknesses in student knowledge. The GED is an achievement test used to grant the status of high school graduate to anyone who passes it. GED recipients currently account for 12 percent of all high school credentials issued each year in the United States. But do achievement tests predict success in life? The Myth of Achievement Tests shows that achievement tests like the GED fail to measure important life skills. James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, Tim Kautz, and a group of scholars offer an in-depth exploration of how the GED came to be used throughout the United States and why our reliance on it is dangerous. Drawing on decades of research, the authors show that, while GED recipients score as well on achievement tests as high school graduates who do not enroll in college, high school graduates vastly outperform GED recipients in terms of their earnings, employment opportunities, educational attainment, and health. The authors show that the differences in success between GED recipients and high school graduates are driven by character skills. Achievement tests like the GED do not adequately capture character skills like conscientiousness, perseverance, sociability, and curiosity. These skills are important in predicting a variety of life outcomes. They can be measured, and they can be taught. Using the GED as a case study, the authors explore what achievement tests miss and show the dangers of an educational system based on them. They call for a return to an emphasis on character in our schools, our systems of accountability, and our national dialogue. Contributors Eric Grodsky, University of Wisconsin–Madison Andrew Halpern-Manners, Indiana University Bloomington Paul A. LaFontaine, Federal Communications Commission Janice H. Laurence, Temple University Lois M. Quinn, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Pedro L. Rodríguez, Institute of Advanced Studies in Administration John Robert Warren, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities







Evaluation and Testing in Nursing Education


Book Description

Designated a Doody's Core Title and Essential Purchase! "Without question, this book should be on every nurse educator's bookshelf, or at least available through the library or nursing program office. Certainly, all graduate students studying to be nurse educators should have a copy." --Nursing Education Perspectives "This [third edition] is an invaluable resource for theoretical and practical application of evaluation and testing of clinical nursing students. Graduate students and veteran nurses preparing for their roles as nurse educators will want to add this book to their library." Score: 93, 4 stars --Doody's "This 3rd edition. . . .has again given us philosophical, theoretical and social/ethical frameworks for understanding assessment and measurement, as well as fundamental knowledge to develop evaluation tools for individual students and academic programs." -Nancy F. Langston, PhD, RN, FAAN Dean and Professor Virginia Commonwealth University School of Nursing All teachers need to assess learning. But often, teachers are not well prepared to carry out the tasks related to evaluation and testing. This third edition of Evaluation and Testing in Nursing Education serves as an authoritative resource for teachers in nursing education programs and health care agencies. Graduate students preparing for their roles as nurse educators will also want to add this book to their collection. As an inspiring, award-winning title, this book presents a comprehensive list of all the tools required to measure students' classroom and clinical performance. The newly revised edition sets forth expanded coverage on essential concepts of evaluation, measurement, and testing in nursing education; quality standards of effective measurement instruments; how to write all types of test items and establish clinical performance parameters and benchmarks; and how to evaluate critical thinking in written assignments and clinical performance. Special features: The steps involved in test construction, with guidelines on how to develop test length, test difficulty, item formats, and scoring procedures Guidelines for assembling and administering a test, including design rules and suggestions for reproducing the test Strategies for writing multiple-choice and multiple-response items How to develop test items that prepare students for licensure and certification examinations Like its popular predecessors, this text offers a seamless blending of theoretical and practical insight on evaluation and testing in nursing education, thus serving as an invaluable resource for both educators and students.




Testing in American Schools


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Constructing Achievement Tests


Book Description




Testing, Teaching, and Learning


Book Description

State education departments and school districts face an important challenge in implementing a new law that requires disadvantaged students to be held to the same standards as other students. The new requirements come from provisions of the 1994 reauthorization of Title I, the largest federal effort in precollegiate education, which provides aid to "level the field" for disadvantaged students. Testing, Teaching, and Learning is written to help states and school districts comply with the new law, offering guidance for designing and implementing assessment and accountability systems. This book examines standards-based education reform and reviews the research on student assessment, focusing on the needs of disadvantaged students covered by Title I. With examples of states and districts that have track records in new systems, the committee develops a practical "decision framework" for education officials. The book explores how best to design assessment and accountability systems that support high levels of student learning and to work toward continuous improvement. Testing, Teaching, and Learning will be an important tool for all involved in educating disadvantaged studentsâ€"state and local administrators and classroom teachers.




Assessment of Student Achievement


Book Description

Based on the premise that assessment of student achievement plays a vital role in instruction - and that its main goal is to improve learning - this new resource emphasizes all types of achievement assessments, not simply classroom assessments. While stressing the importance of using both classroom tests and performance assessments for a comprehensive assessment of all intended learning outcomes, author Gronlund explains that each makes a unique and important contribution and each, therefore, complements and supplements the other. In it you see clearly how to prepare and use classroom tests and performance assessments, how to assign grades, and how to interpret standardized test scores to students and parents. Here you'll find all the basic concepts presented with scrupulous technical accuracy in a simple, direct, understandable manner. Practical examples, checklists, boxed material highlighting significant points, and summaries of main points make the concepts extremely clear.




Knowing What Students Know


Book Description

Education is a hot topic. From the stage of presidential debates to tonight's dinner table, it is an issue that most Americans are deeply concerned about. While there are many strategies for improving the educational process, we need a way to find out what works and what doesn't work as well. Educational assessment seeks to determine just how well students are learning and is an integral part of our quest for improved education. The nation is pinning greater expectations on educational assessment than ever before. We look to these assessment tools when documenting whether students and institutions are truly meeting education goals. But we must stop and ask a crucial question: What kind of assessment is most effective? At a time when traditional testing is subject to increasing criticism, research suggests that new, exciting approaches to assessment may be on the horizon. Advances in the sciences of how people learn and how to measure such learning offer the hope of developing new kinds of assessments-assessments that help students succeed in school by making as clear as possible the nature of their accomplishments and the progress of their learning. Knowing What Students Know essentially explains how expanding knowledge in the scientific fields of human learning and educational measurement can form the foundations of an improved approach to assessment. These advances suggest ways that the targets of assessment-what students know and how well they know it-as well as the methods used to make inferences about student learning can be made more valid and instructionally useful. Principles for designing and using these new kinds of assessments are presented, and examples are used to illustrate the principles. Implications for policy, practice, and research are also explored. With the promise of a productive research-based approach to assessment of student learning, Knowing What Students Know will be important to education administrators, assessment designers, teachers and teacher educators, and education advocates.




Encyclopedia of Child Behavior and Development


Book Description

This reference work breaks new ground as an electronic resource. Utterly comprehensive, it serves as a repository of knowledge in the field as well as a frequently updated conduit of new material long before it finds its way into standard textbooks.