In February 2014, a state department of education contacted the Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes (CEELO) for support in informing the rebranding of their kindergarten readiness assessment instrument. This state's department of education would like to develop a plan for increasing the use of the early childhood assessment system among…

Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) released the first comprehensive study of assessment perceptions in 2012 that surveyed parents, teachers, and district administrators. In the intervening years, the landscape has shifted dramatically; indeed, it continues to shift every day. With new standards, accountability assessments, and ways of…

A computer adaptive test (CAT) is a delivery methodology that serves the larger goals of the assessment system in which it is embedded. A thorough analysis of the assessment system for which a CAT is being designed is critical to ensure that the delivery platform is appropriate and addresses all relevant complexities. As such, a CAT engine must be…

Problems of scale typically arise when comparing test score trends, gaps, and gap trends across different tests. To overcome some of these difficulties, we can express the difference between the observed test performance of two groups with graphs or statistics that are metric-free (i.e., invariant under positive monotonic transformations of the…