The field of educational measurement has evolved considerably since the first doctoral programs were established. In response, programs have typically tacked on courses that address newly developed theories, methods, tools, and techniques. As our review of current programs evidences, this approach produces artificial distinctions among topics and…

In this paper, we provide an overview of psychometric procedures and guidelines Educational Testing Service (ETS) uses to evaluate automated essay scoring for operational use. We briefly describe the e-rater system, the procedures and criteria used to evaluate e-rater, implications for a range of potential uses of e-rater, and directions for…

Online learning has been rapidly developing in the last decade. However, there is very little literature available about the actual adoption of online synchronous assessment approaches and any guidelines for effective assessment design and implementation. This paper aims at designing and evaluating the possibility of applying online synchronous…

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Improvements Act of 2001 (MCKV), which provides funds to local educational agencies (LEAs), is almost a decade old, yet no evaluations of its academic effectiveness have been reported. Using a systems theory framework, the authors answer the question of whether homeless students in grade 6 from LEAs…

This paper reports on an analysis of large-scale assessments of Grades 5-8 students' writing across 10 provinces and 2 territories in Canada. Theory, classroom practice, and the contributions and constraints of large-scale writing assessment are brought together with a focus on Grades 5-8 writing in order to provide both a broad view of…

Local assessment systems are being marketed as formative, benchmark, predictive, and a host of other terms. Many so-called formative assessments are not at all similar to the types of assessments and strategies studied by Black and Wiliam (1998) but instead are interim assessments. In this article, we clarify the definition and uses of interim…

The Internal Medicine In-Training Examination (ITE) is administered during residency training in the United States as a self-assessment and program assessment tool. Performance on this exam correlates with outcome on the American Board of Internal Medicine Certifying examination. Internal Medicine Program Directors use the United States Medical…

Assessments labeled as formative have been offered as a means to improve student achievement. But labels can be a powerful way to miscommunicate. For an assessment use to be appropriately labeled "formative," both empirical evidence and reasoned arguments must be offered to support the claim that improvements in student achievement can be linked…

Background: Validity is a central concern in any assessment, though this has often not been made explicit in the UK assessment context. This article applies current validity theorising, largely derived from American formulations, to national curriculum assessments in England. Purpose: The aim is to consider validity arguments in relation to the…

Background: National curriculum tests have been administered in England for well over a decade. Although reliability evidence has been published, critics have argued that there is not enough evidence (of the right kind) and that test results may be insufficiently reliable. Purpose: This article collates and discusses evidence on the reliability of…

Background: In 2008 primary education in England reached, historically, another important phase in its development. Government reviewed the primary curriculum and some aspects of the national system of assessment. These government reviews coincided with an independent "Primary Review" based at the University of Cambridge to which the…

In most large-scale assessments of student achievement, several broad content domains are tested. Because more items are needed to cover the content domains than can be presented in the limited testing time to each individual student, multiple test forms or booklets are utilized to distribute the items to the students. The construction of an…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe how and why Texas A&M University at Qatar (TAMUQ) has developed a system aiming to effectively place students in freshman and developmental English programs. The placement system includes: triangulating data from external test scores, with scores from a panel-marked hand-written essay (HWE),…

In many school districts, the pressure to raise test scores has created overnight celebrity status for formative assessment. Its powers to raise student achievement have been touted, however, without attending to the research on which these claims were based. Sociocultural learning theory provides theoretical grounding for understanding how…

Discusses how online programs are using new strategies of testing, both to teach students and to prove that distance education works; however, some educators question their efficacy. (EV)