Summarizes the current state of the art in test construction and contrasts it with previous conceptual models, some of which are wrong or misleading. New methodologies for item selection and review are presented, with current thinking on the specification of technical characteristics of tests. (Author/SLD)

The research reported in this paper was conducted to gain information to guide the selection of standard setting procedures for use with polytomous items to set achievement levels on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assessments in U.S. History and geography. Standard-setting procedures were evaluated to determine the relative…

The issue of test-item selection in support of decision making in adaptive testing is considered. The number of items needed to make a decision is compared for two approaches: selecting items from an item pool that are most informative at the decision point or selecting items that are most informative at the examinee's ability level. The first…