Given its centrality to assessment, until the concept of validity includes concern for racial justice, such matters will be seen as residing outside the "real" work of validation, rendering them powerless to count against the apparent scientific merit of the test. As the definition of validity has evolved, however, it holds great…

In the wake of the COVID-19 boom in remote administration of language tests, it appears likely that remote administration will be a permanent fixture in the language testing landscape. Accordingly, language test providers, stakeholders, and researchers must grapple with the implications of remote proctoring on valid, fair, and just uses of tests.…

This article offers a critique of the validity argument put forward by Camara, Mattern, Croft, and Vispoel (2019) regarding the use of college-admissions tests in high school assessment systems. We challenge their argument in two main ways. First, we illustrate why their argument fails to address broader issues related to consequences of using…

In 2018, 26 states administered a college admissions test to all public school juniors. Nearly half of those states proposed to use those scores as their academic achievement indicators for federal accountability under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA); many others are planning to use those scores for other accountability purposes.…

This article reviews the intended uses of these college- and career-readiness assessments with the goal of articulating an appropriate validity argument to support such uses. These assessments differ fundamentally from today's state assessments employed for state accountability. Current assessments are used to determine if students have…

To validate an interpretation or use of test scores is to evaluate the plausibility of the claims based on the scores. An argument-based approach to validation suggests that the claims based on the test scores be outlined as an argument that specifies the inferences and supporting assumptions needed to get from test responses to score-based…

Standard-setting procedures are a key component within many large-scale educational assessment systems. They are consensual approaches in which committees of experts set cut-scores on continuous proficiency scales, which facilitate communication of proficiency distributions of students to a wide variety of stakeholders. This communicative function…

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…

In the United States, when English language learners (ELLs) are tested, they are usually tested in English and their limited English proficiency is a potential cause of construct-irrelevant variance. When such irrelevancies affect test scores, inaccurate interpretations of ELLs' knowledge, skills, and abilities may occur. In this article, we…

Using a factorially complex test on a highly homogeneous population is explored, and a procedure is demonstrated that can statistically justify using a cognitive test on which Cronbach's alpha is low. The example involves 649 accountants (auditors). Results indicate that unbundling test and sample provides justification for using the data. (SLD)

It has often been asserted that the reliability of a measure places an upper limit on its validity. This article demonstrates in theory that validity can rise when reliability declines, even when validity evidence is a correlation with an acceptable criterion. Whether empirical examples can actually be found is an open question. (SLD)

Asserts that publishers of achievement tests are, for the most part, not in a position to obtain on their own any decent evidence about the consequences of uses made of their tests. Reasons why this is so are discussed, and what publishers can be expected to do is outlined. (SLD)

The relationship between the validity theory of the past 50 years and actual validity practices was studied by comparing published test standards with the practices of measurement professionals expressed in the "Mental Measurements Yearbook" test reviews. Results show a symbiotic relationship between theory and practice on the influence…

The American Psychological Association, in the late 1940s, began work to establish a code of ethics to include and address the needs of members in scientific and applied fields. Out of the ethics work emerged a set of standards for evaluating psychological tests. Four categories, or types of validity, were identified: content, predictive,…

The psychometric analyses of a previous study of the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale were replicated in a study with 111 female nursing and medical educators. Results support the previous findings challenging the proposed theoretical structure but supporting the reliable measurement of some as-yet-unclear dimension by the instrument. (SLD)