The paper argues that contemporary test validity theory places the consequences of testing on the lives of all college applicants at the back of the test validation argument. It introduces the notion of test efficacy as a process to gather evidence on claims on consequences of testing on all college applicants that can be traced back to validity.…

Cognitive diagnostic models (CDM) have been around for more than a decade but their application is far from widespread for mainly two reasons: (1) CDMs are novel, as compared to traditional IRT models. Consequently, many researchers lack familiarity with them and their properties, and (2) Software programs doing CDMs have been expensive and not…

Much has already been written on the controversies surrounding the use of different test theories in educational assessment. Other authors have noted the prevalence of classical test theory over item response theory in practice. This Special Issue draws together articles based upon work conducted on the Reliability Programme for England's…

While measurement precision is relatively easy to establish for single tests and assessments, it is much more difficult to determine for decision making with multiple tests on different subjects. This latter is the situation in the system of final examinations for secondary education in the Netherlands and is used as an example in this paper. This…

This study examines Linguistic Competence in English Language (LCE) as a general indicator of Communicative Competence. A test and a questionnaire were administered to 1838 undergraduate freshmen from five major institutes of higher education in Aguascalientes, Mexico. The results of the test are analysed in their association with main features of…

DICOT, a computer program for the Rasch analysis of classroom tests, is described. Results are presented in a self-explanatory form. Person ability and item difficulty estimates are expressed in a familiar metric. Person and item fit statistics provide a diagnosis of individual children and identification of problematic items. (Author/DWH)

Describes development of qualifying examinations in English and Welsh secondary schools. Evaluates forms and quality of testing in history. Presents suggestions by experts and changes made in England and Wales over 21-year period. Finds that most problems stemmed from desires to cover long periods of time while providing the depth of coverage…

Suggests that any model of washback must include insights from the theory of educational innovation to help explain why tests do not always have the desired or feared effect. Key concepts in educational innovation are reviewed, showing how these concepts are manifested in a case study in washback and outlining how they are being applied in recent…

This book contrasts non-Soviet approaches to language testing and provides definitions from four Soviet language test experts. The role of foreign language teaching, the function of tests, and theoretical problems are discussed, with considerable focus on communicative competence. The book discusses test standardization and classification and…