Great opportunities for language testing practitioners are enabled through language program administration. Local language tests lend themselves to multiple purposes--for placement and diagnosis, as a means of tracking progress, and as a contribution to program evaluation and revision. Administrative choices, especially those involving a test, are…

The 2022-2023 Indiana Assessments Policy Manual serves as the foundation for established guidelines regarding appropriate test administration in Indiana for key stakeholders including educators and Test Coordinators. The following document contains policy guidance and contains appendices which pertain to specific aspects of test implementation,…

The examination of a PhD thesis marks an important stage in the PhD student journey. Here, the student's research, thinking and writing are assessed by experts in their field. Yet, in the early stages of candidature, students often do not know what is expected of their thesis, nor what examiners will scrutinise and comment on. However, what…

The COVID-19 shutdown of in-person university classrooms in Spring 2020 brought the question of how to conduct online examinations into urgent focus. Although, online education has been around since 1984 and online exams have been routinely built into online course syllabi, the mid-semester transition to online teaching confronted many instructors…

In April 2021, The Association for Assessment and Research in Counseling Executive Council commissioned a time-referenced task group to revise the Responsibilities of Users of Standardized Tests (RUST) Statement (3rd edition) published by the Association for Assessment in Counseling (AAC) in 2003. The task group developed a work plan to implement…

This article describes how with the advent of computer-based technology, there is movement from manual to automated systems for different aspects of the education system. Testing is an essential part of teaching process that helps academics in classifying the level of students and evaluating the outcomes of their teaching process. The testing…

Encouraging doctoral students to publish during their candidature is becoming more widely accepted and practised, both in Australia and internationally, although it is still less common in some fields. Almost all universities in Australia now offer candidates an option to include publications in their doctoral thesis. This paradigm shift has…

In the mid-nineteenth century, a system of music examinations was initiated in Britain that came to encompass the far-flung reaches of the British Empire. These examinations offered an internationally recognized system of professional and musical standards. For the next several decades the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) and…

It is widely accepted dogma that consequential decisions are better made with multiple measures, because using but a single one is thought more likely to be laden with biases and errors that can be better controlled with a wider source of evidence for making judgments. Unfortunately, advocates of using multiple measures too rarely provide detailed…

Sound test security policies and procedures are needed to ensure test security and confidentiality, and to help prevent cheating. In this era when cheating on tests draws regular media attention, there is a need for thoughtful consideration of the ways in which possible test security measures may affect accessibility for some students with…

This article briefly reviews the history of intellectual assessment of children and youth in the United States of America, as well as current practices and future directions. Although administration of intelligence tests in the schools has been a longstanding practice in the United States, their use has also elicited sharp controversy over time.…

The read-aloud accommodation is one of the most frequently used accommodations. Many educators need training to more confidently select, implement, and evaluate the use of the read-aloud accommodation. Planning by special education leaders can help ensure that test day goes smoothly for students who need the read-aloud accommodation.

In popular culture, the inventor is often portrayed as a lone tinkerer who emerges from a workshop with some magnificent new device. In reality, most inventions are the collaborative effort of scientists and engineers--usually researchers affiliated with a college or corporation--that result in the discovery, creation, or improvement of either…

The question of whether marking speed is related to marking accuracy is important for training examiners and planning realistic marking schedules. We explored marking speed in the context of a past examination for an international biology qualification for 14- to 16-year-olds. Forty-two markers with differing backgrounds experimentally marked 23…

The medical examination of the sexually abused child may have evidentiary, medical, and therapeutic purposes, and the timing of the examination requires consideration of each of these objectives. In cases of acute sexual assault, emergent examinations may be needed to identify injury, collect forensic evidence, and provide infection and pregnancy…