Recent years have produced a surge in interest in improving state assessment programs. Many states are designing new assessments. Much of this innovation is aimed at addressing longstanding areas of unhappiness with typical domain-sampled, end-of-year state assessments: States want to streamline assessment activities, enhance the instructional…

One of the substantive changes in the 2014 Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing was the elevation of fairness in testing as a foundational element of practice in addition to validity and reliability. Previous research indicates that testing practices often do not align with professional standards and guidelines. Therefore, to raise…

The tests we use to evaluate student achievement may well be sound measures of what students know, but they are faulty indicators at best of how well they have been taught. A remedy to this this situation of judging teachers by the performance of their students on high-stakes tests may be in hand already. We should look to the methods successfully…

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) is one of the world's leading educational research centres. ACER's mission is to create and promote research-based knowledge, products and services that can be used to improve learning across the life span. This annual report describes ACER's milestones and accomplishments for the 2013-2014…

Auditory perception with cochlear implants (CIs) enables the majority of deaf children with normal learning potential to develop (near) age-appropriate spoken language. As a consequence, a large proportion of children now attend mainstream education from an early stage. The acoustical environment in kindergartens and schools, however, might be…

The present highly developed status of psychological and educational testing in the United States is in part the result of many efforts over the past 100 years to develop economical and reliable methods of scoring. The present article traces a number of methods, ranging from hand scoring to present-day computer applications, stimulated by the need…

ACT is often asked whether student scores on the ACT[R] test can be used to make "norm-referenced" or "standards-referenced" comparisons. Norm-referenced interpretations compare students to one another, while standards-referenced interpretations measure student performance against predefined content standards. This brief shows…

Outcomes measurements have always been an important part of proving to outside constituencies how you "measure up" to other schools with your business programs. A common nationally-normed exam that is used is the Major Field Achievement Test in Business from Educational Testing Services. Our paper discusses some guidelines that we are…

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…

As a principal facing the task of figuring out all the complexities of the No Child Left Behind legislation, Kenneth Remsen, has concluded there is a strong belief that testing students is the answer to bringing about improvements in student performance. Because testing seems to be a cornerstone to improving performance, he doesn't understand why…

Testing as a means of documenting progress has risen to prominence in the climate of educational crisis which followed the publication of "A Nation At Risk." New developments in testing will determine how some of the current problems now facing postsecondary education are resolved. Among these problems are the following: lack of agreement on what…

Provides a brief chronology of events which took place in the development of the statewide eighth grade assessment of history/social science in California. Describes the content of the tests and lists the names of the individuals who served on the various development committees. (JDH)

The article contrasts North American and Soviet views and approaches to student evaluations, especially in the area of testing differences in academic achievement. It provides a brief summary of Soviet schooling and evaluative procedures. (Author/SB)

Gives a rationale for assessing critical thinking through writing. Provides examples of semi-structured open-ended test items used to assess critical thinking through writing. A brief bibliography is included. (JDH)

Six articles review the results of the 1985 California Assessment Program's eighth grade test of History/Social Science. Each article reviews areas where students excelled or had difficulties and makes recommendations for adjustments in curricula or teaching procedures. (JDH)