The bookmark standard-setting procedure is an item response theory-based method that is widely implemented in state testing programs. This study estimates standard errors for cut scores resulting from bookmark standard settings under a generalizability theory model and investigates the effects of different universes of generalization and error…

The equating process links scores from different editions of the same test. For testing programs that build nearly parallel forms to the same explicit content and statistical specifications and administer forms under the same conditions, the linkings between the forms are expected to be equatings. Score equity assessment (SEA) provides a useful…

The purpose of this report is to identify the most prominent issues in U.S. higher education and to develop strategic research plans to address the issues that are most relevant to ETS's capabilities in measurement and assessment through the ETS's higher education research initiative. In the United States, issues related to higher education such…

Paraprofessionals represent a growing segment of district employees seeking professional licensure. National preparation programs through the American Federation of Teachers, national testing programs, and state initiated portfolio programs offer a variety of options for meeting the stipulations set under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation…

This report compares state math and reading proficiency scores in grades 4 and 8 to National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) basic scores for the period of 2005 to 2009. The study found that scores on state tests and NAEP have increased in most states with sufficient data. Also included with the report are profiles for the 23 states that…

U.S. state educational testing programs administer tests to track student progress and hold schools accountable for educational outcomes. Methods from item response theory, especially Rasch models, are usually used to equate different forms of a test. The most popular method for estimating Rasch models yields inconsistent estimates and relies on…

In practice, vertical scales have been continually used to measure students' achievement progress across several grade levels and have been considered very challenging psychometric procedures. Recently, such practices have been drawing many criticisms. The major criticisms focus on dimensionality and construct equivalence of the latent trait or…

A hallmark of school library media best practice is for the library media center to be open and accessible to patron use before, during, and after the school day and throughout the entire school year. Anecdotal evidence and informal discussion among school library media specialists indicate that library media facilities are sometimes used for…

This study questions the belief that little or no social studies is being taught in regular elementary education classrooms. That belief is based on time studies and a body of research that looks at curriculum and teacher interviews and concludes that the social studies time block has been decreased in elementary classrooms, therefore little or no…

When performing large scale evaluations (e.g., on a state-wide or national level) it may not be possible to administer all items in the item universe to all respondents in the subject population. One method which has been proposed to sample both items and respondents is multiple matrix sampling (MMS) in which a sample of the items is administered…

Licensure testing programs in the United States (e.g., nursing) face an increasing challenge of measuring the competency of internationally trained candidates, both in relation to their clinical competence and their English language competence. To assist with the latter, professional licensing bodies often adopt well-established and widely…

Presented is an integer-programming approach to item pool design that can be used to calculate an optimal blueprint for an item pool to support an existing testing program. The results are optimal in the sense that they minimize the efforts involved in actually producing the items as revealed by current item writing patterns. Also presented is an…

Registered nurses (n=368) participated in a skills recredentialing program in which competencies were assessed by a knowledge test and performance test under simulated conditions and evaluator ratings in actual patient-care situations. No significant differences in results between the simulated and actual conditions support the validity of the…

Many in the research and policy worlds have taken for granted the existence of a phenomenon known as the "plateau effect," wherein test scores rise in the early years of a test-based accountability system and then level off. Drawing from our database of reading and math test results from all 50 states going back as far as 1999, the…

Two methods to establish a common scale across grades within a content area using a common item design (separate and concurrent) have previously been studied under simulated conditions. Separate estimation is accomplished through separate calibration and grade-by-grade chained linking. Concurrent calibration established the vertical scale in a…