Recent research in individualized (e.g., Lipson, 1967) and computer assisted (e.g., Suppes, 1966) instruction has led to an increasing awareness of the inadequacies of norm referenced testing and the need for testing procedures which determine each individual's mastery on specific types of tasks (e.g., Coulson & Cogswell, 1965). Knowing how well a student has performed relative to some peer group, for example, says relatively little about the kinds of decisions that must be made if instruction is to be totally individualized. Ideally, in mastery testing the procedures used should 1) pravide a sound basis for diagnosing individual strengths and weaknesses on each type of task, 2) require as few items as possible, and 3) provide a basis for generalizing from overall test performance to behavior on a clearly defined universe or domain of tasks.

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The notion of a restricted rule or strategy was introduced. It was hypothesized that extra-scope transfer depends on the extent to which a statement of strategy may be viewed as a restriction of a more general strategy. 66 high school Sa were taught a restricted statement (S', SG', or G') of 1 of 3 strategies of varying generality, 8 (= S') < SG (SG') < G (GO. 22 Sa served as a control (C). All /Ss were tested on 6 problems, the 1st 2 within the scope of the most specific strategy (S), the 2nd 2 within the scope of only the more general strategies (SG and G), and the last 2 only within the scope of strategy G. Statements S', SG', and G' were directly applicable only to the 1st 2 problems. Groups SG' and G' evidenced extra-scope transfer. Groups S' and C did not. In addition, performance on the 2nd problem of each pair was contingent on performance on the corresponding 1st problems indicating that "what is learned" may be determined by performance on single test items and used to predict performance on additional similar-scope problems. Suggestions were made for future research.

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