Resumen de The establishment of the validities of a linear science program and a criterion test
Programmed worksheets and oral work were developed in a secondary school in Northern Nigeria to teach general science to first‐year pupils. The accompanying criterion test was designed to measure the recall of knowledge acquired by pupils from the program. To establish the program's content validity an appropriate form of presentation was chosen and an extensive developmental procedure was carried out. Criterion test scores provided some measure of the empirical validity of the program. The test was given content validity by directly relating items to the program objectives. Item analyses of three test drafts improved the construct validity by enabling items to be detected that were outside the limits set for item difficulty and item discrimination. Further evidence for construct validity came from the hypothesised positive correlations found between criterion test gain scores and the scores for verbal, non‐verbal and reading ability tests.
