Getting Inside the EQA Inventory: Grade 8.

Although it is difficult both to determine educational goals and to measure goal attainment, the Educational Quality Assessment Inventory (EQAI) has ambitiously tackled both problems. During a five-year period 45 separate instruments containing over 2000 items were constructed, revised, rejected, and accepted in preparation for the present inventory. This inventory has scales which independently measure different facets of educational goals including basic skill achievement, social and health habits, feelings toward self and others, value placed on learning and human accomplishment, interest in creative activities, and methods of coping with freedom. The battery of tests was administered to 253,226 students attending 240 Commonwealth intermediate schools. Though individual names were erased prior to test scoring, information necessary to identify general student groups was obtained through questions of sex, ability level, and father occupation. Answers were scored by both norm-referenced and criterion-referenced methods. Selection of these complementary scoring methods enhance the concept that result accountability goes beyond the school. Recognition of many experiences shaping the educational progress of an individual, however, does not detract from efforts to restructure school programs in hopes of goal attainment. (BJG)