Objective: Our master's program in biostatistics requires a qualifying examination (QE). A curriculum review led us to question whether to replace a closed-book format with an open-book one. Our goal was to improve the QE. Methods: This is a case study and commentary, where we describe the evolution of the QE, both in its goals and its content.…

This interview with James E. Purpura via Zoom comes in uncertain times, with CVOID-19 turning into a global pandemic. The author delves into different issues related to James E. Purpura's early career and his Language Assessment Quarterly (LAQ) editorial experience. Then moves on and talk about his research and teaching. The final part will…

Antony John Kunnan is a language assessment specialist. His research interests are fairness of tests and testing practice, assessment literacy, research methods and statistics, ethics and standards, and language assessment policy. His most recent publications include a four-volume edited collection of 140 chapters titled "The Companion to…

Birnbaum raised important challenges to testing transitivity. We summarize why an approach based on counting response patterns does not solve these challenges. Foremost, we show why parsimonious tests of transitivity require at least 5 choice alternatives. While the approach of Regenwetter, Dana, and Davis-Stober achieves high power with modest…

The release of Diane Ravitch's new book, "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education," caused quite a stir in the education community because in it Ravitch does an about-face, criticizing the education policies she had fully supported over the years, including when she served as…

Humphry (this issue) has written a thought-provoking piece on the interpretation of item discrimination parameters as scale units in item response theory. One of the key features of his work is the description of an item response theory (IRT) model that he calls the logistic measurement function that combines aspects of two traditions in IRT that…

We propose, develop, and evaluate the black ink-red ink (BIRI) method of testing. This approach uses two different methods within the same test administration setting, one that matches recognition learning and the other that matches recall learning. Students purposively define their own tradeoff between the two approaches. Evaluation of the method…

This article concerns a particular application of Vygotsky's concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) wherein conventional assessment situations are reorganized to allow for cooperation between assessor and learner as they jointly complete assessment tasks and work through difficulties that arise. This approach, known as Dynamic…

In this commentary, the author points out few issues, one being that there are models mislabeled as diagnostic, which deal with linear decompositions of item difficulties rather than estimating multidimensional skill variables. The author discusses the issue that there are many new names for essentially well-known models for multiple simultaneous…

As Rupp and Templin (2008) stated directly, diagnostic classification methods "are confirmatory in nature." Methods, though, are neither inherently confirmatory nor exploratory. Diagnostic classification modeling, with its analytical and computational obstacles eventually yielding as a comprehensive and potent discipline emerges, will…

The paper by Rupp and Templin (2008) is an excellent work on the characteristics and features of cognitive diagnostic models (CDM). In this article, the authors comment on some substantial and methodological aspects of this focus paper. They organize their comments by going through issues associated with the terms "cognitive,"…

The myth equating high-stakes testing with rigor and difficulty is one that can be debunked given the empirical work that has been conducted in this area. To completely debunk this myth in gifted education, the field must centralize efforts. Educators need to consider alternatives to the current system of assessment and the delivery of…

Over the past few decades, educators in general, and language teachers in specific, were more inclined towards using testing techniques that resembled real-life language performance. Unlike traditional paper-and-pencil language tests that required test-takers to attempt tests that were based on artificial and contrived language content,…

Lissitz and Samuelsen (2007) have proposed a framework that seemingly deems construct validity evidence irrelevant to supporting educational test meaning. The author of this article agrees with Lissitz and Samuelsen that internal evidence establishes test meaning, but she argues that construct validity need not be removed from the validity sphere.…

In response to Lissitz and Samuelsen (2007), the author reconstructs the historical arguments for the more comprehensive unitary concept of validity and the principles of scientific inquiry underlying it. Her response is organized in terms of four questions: (a) How did validity in educational measurement come to be conceptualized as unitary, and…