In this digital ITEMS module, Dr. Robert [Bob] Mislevy and Dr. Maria Elena Oliveri introduce and illustrate a sociocognitive perspective on educational measurement, which focuses on a variety of design and implementation considerations for creating fair and valid assessments for learners from diverse populations with diverse sociocultural…

There are several techniques that increase the precision of subscores by borrowing information from other parts of the test. These techniques have been criticized on validity grounds in several of the recent publications. In this note, the authors question the argument used in these publications and suggest both inherent limits to the validity…

Recently, student outcomes have bubbled to the top of debates about how to evaluate teaching in community and liberal arts colleges, universities, and professional schools, but even more international attention has been riveted on how outcomes are being used to evaluate teachers and administrators K-12 (Harris, 2012; Rowen & Raudenbush, 2016;…

The first large-scale, nationwide academic achievement testing program using Stanford Achievement Test (Stanford) for deaf and hard-of-hearing children in the United States started in 1969. Over the past three decades, the Stanford has served as a benchmark in the field of deaf education for assessing student academic achievement. However, the…

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…

The use of value-added modeling (VAM) in school accountability is expanding. However, trying to decide how to embrace VAM can be rather nettlesome. Some experts claim it is "too unreliable," causes "more harm than good," and has "a big margin for error," while other experts assert VAM is "imperfect, but…

Thousands of examiners are employed to mark candidate scripts from the suite of public examinations offered to students during the compulsory and post-compulsory schooling phases in England, Northern Ireland and Wales. All examiners undergo training to ensure that they interpret correctly, and apply consistently, the mark scheme for their…

Economic theory commonly models unobserved worker quality as a given parameter that is fixed over time, but empirical evidence supporting this assumption is sparse. In this paper we report on work estimating the stability of value-added estimates of teacher effects, an important area of investigation given that new workforce policies implicitly…

The purpose of this investigation was to develop an instrument that has scores that are valid and reliable for measuring students' attitudes toward fitness testing. A second purpose of the study was to determine the attitudes of secondary students toward fitness testing. A review of literature, an elicitation study, and a pilot study were…

Research shows that adolescents enter a circadian-phase delay as they approach and enter high school. On or about age 14, teens become less of a morning learner due to biological factors. Researchers have determined consequences to the adolescent's circadian shift as related to learning; therefore, morning time may have a negative influence on the…

In this research investigation of score comparability for language minority students (English language learners [ELLs] and former English language learners), we examined 3 indicators of score comparability (reliability, internal test structure, and differential item functioning) for 4th and 8th grade students who took the NCLB-mandated content…

Teacher effectiveness and evaluation using student growth measures is a popular reform strategy in education. Teachers can make a difference in student academic growth, but a question that begs an answer is how to go about measuring this impact. This study examines models of teacher effectiveness and the development of hierarchical linear models…

Reliability and validity are two characteristics that must be considered whenever information about student achievement is collected. However, those characteristics--and the methods for evaluating them--differ in large-scale testing and classroom testing contexts. This article presents the distinctions between reliability and validity in the two…

Reviews important milestones in the history of reliability, current issues related to reliability, and likely prospects for reliability from the perspective of what constitutes a replication of a measurement procedure. Pays special attention to the fixed/random aspects of facets that characterize replications. (SLD)

In this commentary, the authors discuss some of the issues regarding the use of diagnostic classification models that practitioners should keep in mind. In the authors experience, these issues are not as well known as they should be. The authors then provide recommendations on diagnostic scoring.