Diagnostic scores are of increasing interest in educational testing due to their potential remedial and instructional benefit. Naturally, the number of educational tests that report diagnostic scores is on the rise, as are the number of research publications on such scores. This article provides a critical evaluation of diagnostic score reporting…

Several current international comparative large-scale assessments of educational achievement (ICLSA) make use of "Rasch models", to address functions essential for valid cross-cultural comparisons. From a historical perspective, ICLSA and Georg Rasch's "models for measurement" emerged at about the same time, half a century ago. However, the…

This paper focuses on mixtures of two binomials with one known success parameter. It is shown how moment estimators can be obtained for the remaining unknown parameters of such mixtures, and results are presented from a Monte Carlo study carried out to explore the statistical properties of these estimators. (PN)

The stimulus for this colloquium was the convergence of several significant developments bearing on the construct validation of standardized tests and other assessment methods. Of these developments, some were fundamental to psychology as a science; others reflected socio-political pressures on measurement in education and employment. The ten…

Value-added models in education research allow researchers to explore how a wide variety of policies and measured school inputs affect the academic performance of students. Researchers typically quantify the impacts of such interventions in terms of "effect sizes", i.e., the estimated effect of a one standard deviation change in the…

Different models of performance assessment arise from interactions of three dimensions of assessment: the measurement versus the standards model of testing, quantitative and qualitative assumptions concerning the nature of learning, and whether learning and testing are situated or decontextualized. Addresses difficulties in implementing…