Standards-based reform, as codified by the No Child Left Behind Act, relies on the ability of assessments to accurately reflect the learning that takes place in U.S. classrooms. However, this property of assessments--their instructional sensitivity--is rarely, if ever, investigated by test developers, states, or researchers. In this paper, the…

The unfulfilled promise of criterion-referenced measurement is that it would permit valid inferences about what a student could and could not do. To come closest to achieving all that criterion-referenced testing originally promised, tests of higher item density, with more items per amount of domain, are required. (SLD)

Beginning discussions and exploratory work on criterion-referenced measurement are reviewed in this commentary on the author's 1963 address to the American Educational Research Association on issues of measurement and the development of educational technology. Many problems foreseen at that time remain current. (SLD)

Cohen and Hyman's response contains several misunderstandings of the original article by Mehrens and Kaminski. One frequently wishes to make inferences to a domain from a test, but teaching a specific performance and testing for that performance does not allow for a domain inference. (SLD)

This paper discusses how to maintain the integrity of national nomative information for achievement tests when the test that is administered has been customized to satisfy local needs and is not a test that has been nationally normed. Alternative procedures for item selection and calibration are examined. (Author/LMO)

A norm-referenced achievement test, in combination with supplementary items, can be used to produce norm-referenced data as well as objective-referenced data. The experiences of the Palm Beach County (Florida) school district in developing and using such a test are described. (EGS)