The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a read aloud testing accommodation on students with and without a learning disability in reading. A sample of 260 midwestern middle school students (24% with a learning disability in reading, and 76% without such a disability) were randomly assigned to two experimental conditions for testing with four tests of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. The test conditions were standard administration and reading the tests aloud to the students. Based on a two-way (2 x 2) analysis of variance, with test administration and student status as the two fixed factors, the students with learning disabilities in reading, as well as those without, exhibited statistically significant gains with the read aloud test administration. Interaction effects were not significant. Implications of these results for the read aloud accommodation are presented.

The widespread accessibility to large, networked computer labs at educational sites and commercial testing centers, coupled with fast-paced advances in both computer technology and measurement theory, along with the availability of off-the-shelf software for test delivery, all help to make the computerized assessment of individuals more efficient and accurate than assessment using traditional paper-and-pencil (P&P) tests. Computer adaptive testing (CAT) is a form of computerized assessment that has achieved a strong foothold in licensure and certification testing and is finding greater application in many other areas as well, including education. A CAT differs from a straightforward, linear test in that an item(s) is selected for each test taker based on his/her performance on previous items. As such, assessment is tailored online to accommodate the test taker's estimated ability and confront the examinee with items that best measure that ability.

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Since the 1940s, measurement specialists have called for an empirical validation technique that combines content-and construct-related evidence. This study investigated the value of such a technique. A self-assessment instrument designed to cover four traditional foreign language skills was administered to 1,404 college-level foreign language students. Four subject-matter experts were asked to provide item dissimilarity judgments, using whatever criteria they thought appropriate. The data from the students and the experts were examined separately using multidimensional scaling followed by cluster and discriminant analyses. Results showed that the structure of the data underlying both the student and expert scaling solutions corresponded closely to that specified in the instrument blueprint. In addition, using canonical correlation, a comparison of the two scaling solutions revealed a high degree of similarity in the two solutions.

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The written recall protocol is increasingly being used in second language reading research as a measure of comprehension. Although the recall protocol is an essay-like instrument, the total score derived is based entirely on summing the discrete propositions correctly recalled. Consequently, item and reliability analyses comparable to those run on multiple-choice tests can and should be performed on recall protocols and on other integrative measures. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how modified scoring, item and internal consistency analyses, along with Sato's caution indices, can be used to evaluate the quality of the recall protocol as a reading comprehen sion measure. Issues concerning the assumptions underlying classical local independence are discussed with regard to the reading recall protocol and other integrative measures. Results indicate that the procedures can be applied and can yield interpretable results. These results need to be replicated using other texts and other weighting systems. Only when recall protocols are routinely subjected to item and reliability analyses comparable to those performed on other measures, can the instrument be considered a viable alternative.

Inspired by the pioneering work of Seghorn and Cohen on the psychology of the rapist, this study compared the relational maturity of nearly 100 juvenile offenders with the level of violence associated with actual crimes committed. Relational maturity was measured through analyses of the human-content response of the Rorschach Inkblot Test administered to each subject. It was predicted that juvenile offenders with the lowest degree of relational maturity, as measured by the production of poor Rorschach human content (lungs, bones, heart, stomach), were more likely to commit sex crimes than those juveniles with higher relational maturity with good Rorschach human content (two people dancing). The data generated support the notion that juvenile sex offenders’ Rorschach responses show poor relational maturity and produce human-anatomy responses as compared with other offenders. The discussion introduces an object-relational explanation to these findings. The usefulness of the Rorschach Inkblot Test as a measure of relational development of juvenile offenders was also generated. Recommendations conclude our discussion about the need for continued research on the relational development of sex offenders and on the human-anatomy response as an indicator of sexual dangerousness.