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The validity of an educational achievement test depends upon the correspondence between specified educational objectives and the extent to which these objectives are measured by the evaluation instrument. The present study examined the effect of some commonly used test construction procedures which could have some serious consequences for this desired correspondence.

The professional activities of five groups of occupational therapists with different educational backgrounds were compared to examine the influence of education on career characteristics. Analysis of covariance, using length of professional experience as the covariate, revealed statistically significant differences in the areas of education, administration and supervision, leadership, oral presentations, publications, and research but not in clinical practice, public relations, products development, or professional recognition. The greatest differences emerged between the bachelor's, postbaccalaureate certificate, and basic master's groups and the advanced master's and other master's groups, thus supporting the association between increased education and increased professional involvement. No differences were detected between the bachelor's, certificate, and basic master's groups or between the advanced and other master's groups. The least involvement in professional activities occurred in the certificate group although the participation level for all groups was low. Although the findings highlight the important role of education in increasing therapists' involvement in professional activities, educational interventions more subtle than manipulating the entry level for practice or proliferating occupational therapy graduate programs may be needed to create a cadre of occupational therapists committed to advancing the stature of occupational therapy.

The model which is proposed to increase the meaningfulness of standardized test scores includes the following steps: (a) a precise description of curriculum objectives and a specification of pupil achievement in reference to these objectives; (b) the coding of each item on a standardized test with reference to the curriculum, and (c) the assignment of two scores to each pupil, one reflecting his achievement on items that test content to which he has been exposed; the other his achievement on items that test content beyond his present status in the curriculum or not represented in the curriculum at all.