Different definitions and tests of dyslexia can cause unfairness and make life difficult for people with dyslexia as well as for the professionals. In 2012, the Danish government decided to support the fight against dyslexia. The government issued a public tender for the development of "a standardized, electronically administered test of…

Recent literature in the field of L2 vocabulary assessment has advocated for the development of written receptive vocabulary tests such as Vocabulary Levels Tests (VLTs) that use: (a) meaning-recall item formats, (b) a minimum of 40 item counts per 1,000-frequency band to improve level estimates, and (c) lemmas (not word-families) as the lexical…

Purpose: A crucial issue in educational management refers to helping teachers reach their full potential and manage their talents. Although managing talent is advised as an essential resource for organizational transformation to maximize performance and to promote a school's knowledge capital increase, Teachers' talent management (TTM) is not an…

This dissertation aims to bridge the gap between validity theory and the practice of validation. The dissertation employs a three-article approach. Following the introduction in Chapter I, three independent manuscripts representing three empirical studies are presented (i.e., Chapters II - IV). Each chapter is a stand-alone publishable manuscript,…

Within educational and social discourses, the term 'inclusion' has various meanings. In both research and practice, there is no official definition of inclusion. Nevertheless, subjective definitions affect pedagogical acts. We developed the Definitions of Inclusion Questionnaire ["Fragebogen zur Erfassung subjektiver Definitionen von…

Teacher working conditions (TWCs) have been linked to teacher retention and student learning. These connections make TWCs important to understand. However, the literature on TWCs lacks cohesiveness, with widely varying definitions, conceptualizations, and measures of TWCs. Contributing to this lack of cohesion is that there is no accepted…

Hundreds of articles have explored the extent to which individuals accept evolution, and the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) is the most often used survey. However, research indicates the MATE has limitations, and it has not been updated since its creation more than 20 years ago. In this study, we revised the MATE using…

Technology is important to all aspects of our lives, so helping students develop an accurate understanding of technology should be an educational goal at the K-12 level. Assessments are important tools in reaching this goal. We developed an instrument to measure the technology conceptions of children ages 8-11, the 'What is Technology' (WT)…

The AERA, APA, NCME Standards define validity as "the degree to which evidence and theory support the interpretations of test scores for proposed uses of tests". A century of disagreement about validity does not mean that there has not been substantial progress. This consensus definition brings together interpretations and use so that it…

We describe the use of think alouds to examine substantive processes involved in performance on a formative assessment of computational thinking (CT) designed to support self-regulated learning (SRL). Our task design model included three phases of work on a computational thinking problem: forethought, performance, and reflection. The cognitive…

Justification of testing practice involves moving from one state of knowledge about the test to another. Theories of test validity can (a) focus on the beginning of the process, (b) focus on the end, or (c) encompass the entire process. Analyses of four case studies test and illustrate three claims: (a) restrictions on validity entail a supplement…

This paper presents the authors' critique on "Clarifying the Consensus Definition of Validity" by Paul E. Newton (this issue). There are serious differences of opinion regarding the topic of validity. Newton is aware of these differences, as made clear by his choice of references and particularly his effort to respond to the various Borsboom…

One of the most critical steps in the test development process is defining the construct, or the knowledge, skills, or abilities, to be assessed. This foundational step provides the basis for initial assumptions about the meaning of test scores and serves as a reference for subsequent validity research. In this paper, we describe the purpose of…

This study describes a vocabulary size test in Arabic used with 339 native speaking learners at school and university in Saudi Arabia. Native speaker vocabulary size scores should provide targets for attainment for learners of Arabic, should inform the writers of course books and teaching materials, and the test itself should allow learners to…

To assess students' conceptual understanding levels and diagnose alternative frameworks of the electrolyte concept, a measurement instrument was developed using the Rasch model. This paper reports the use of the measurement instrument to assess 559 students from grade 10 to grade 12 in two cities. The results provided both diagnostic and summative…