This study discusses the characteristics of test specifications (specs) and item writer guidelines (IWGs), their role in item development of English as a Second Language (ESL) reading tests, and the use of the CEFR for specs development. This mixed-method study analyzed specs, IWGs, tests, and the Pearson Test of English General test statistics.…

Analyzing heterogeneous treatment effects (HTEs) plays a crucial role in understanding the impacts of educational interventions. A standard practice for HTE analysis is to examine interactions between treatment status and preintervention participant characteristics, such as pretest scores, to identify how different groups respond to treatment.…

Intervention research in education is sometimes criticized for the use of experimenter developed assessments, especially when these are over aligned with treatment. At the same time, intervention researchers sometimes prefer locally developed assessments because they appear to be more sensitive to treatment effects even when the test is not…

Over the last five years, tremendous strides have been made in advancing the AIG methodology required to produce items in diverse content areas. However, the one content area where enormous problems remain unsolved is language arts, generally, and reading comprehension, more specifically. While reading comprehension test items can be created using…

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) has been monitoring international trends in reading achievement among fourth-grade students for 25 years. As a critical point in a student's education, the fourth year of schooling establishes the foundations of literacy, with reading becoming increasingly central to learning across all…

Analyzing heterogeneous treatment effects (HTE) plays a crucial role in understanding the impacts of educational interventions. A standard practice for HTE analysis is to examine interactions between treatment status and pre-intervention participant characteristics, such as pretest scores, to identify how different groups respond to treatment.…

This paper presents the findings of a study that intended to seek the content validity (CV) evidence of an instrument to measure the reading ability of university students in Sri Lanka. The reading passages and items were adapted from CEFR aligned Learning Resource Network (LRN) materials. The items were designed based on the cognitive processing…

This technical report documents the processes and procedures employed by NWEA® to build and support the English MAP® Reading Fluency™ assessments administered during the 2020-2021 school year. It is written for measurement professionals and administrators to help evaluate the quality of MAP Reading Fluency. The seven sections of this report: (1)…

The increasing popularity of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) in non-native English-speaking countries has generated a demand for concrete examples in the creation of CEFR-based tests that assess the four main English skills. In response, this research endeavors to provide insight into the development and validation of a…

An achievement test was prepared to determine students' caricature reading skills. In the first draft of the achievement test, 32 test items and four choices were prepared for each question. The item analysis of the data obtained from the pre-application was made and the internal consistency coefficient (KR-20) was calculated as 0.67 for the…

The present study tries to investigate the fairness of an English reading comprehension test employing Kunnan's (2004) test fairness framework (TFF) as the most comprehensive model available for test fairness. The participants of this study comprised 300 freshman students taking general English course chosen based on the availability sampling,…

Unidimensionality is an important assumption of measurement but it is violated very often. Most of the time, tests are deliberately constructed to be multidimensional to cover all aspects of the intended construct. In such situations, the application of unidimensional item response theory (IRT) models is not justifieddue to poor model fit and…

Cognitive diagnostic models (CDMs) have received much interest within the field of language testing over the last decade due to their great potential to provide diagnostic feedback to all stakeholders and ultimately improve language teaching and learning. A large number of studies have demonstrated the application of CDMs on advanced large-scale…

Cognitive diagnostic models (CDMs) have received sustained attention in educational settings because they can be used to operationalize formative assessment to provide diagnostic feedback and inform instruction. A large number of CDMs have been developed over the past few years. An important component of all CDMs is a Q-matrix that specifies a…

This "Guide" is an update to the State Guide to Universally Designed Assessments produced by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) in 2006 (Johnstone et al.). It provides a brief overview of what a universally designed assessment is, followed by a set of steps for states to consider when designing and developing, or…