Background: Automated writing evaluation (AWE) systems, used as formative assessment tools in writing classrooms, are promising for enhancing instruction and improving student performance. Although meta-analytic evidence supports AWE's effectiveness in various contexts, research on its effectiveness in the U.S. K-12 setting has lagged behind its…

Restrictions and challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic challenged higher education institutions to innovate to keep reaching teaching and learning goals. In South Africa, existing social inequalities were exacerbated by the pandemic restrictions and many students faced severe challenges in terms of access and support to aid in their…

As a result of the Japanese Ministry of Education's recent edict that students' written and spoken English should be assessed in university entrance exams, there is an urgent need for tools to help teachers and students prepare for these exams. Although some commercial tools already exist, they are generally expensive and inflexible. To address…

Over the past several years, content experts, psychometricians, and researchers have been hard at work developing, refining, and studying the digital SAT. The work is grounded in foundational best practices and advances in measurement and assessment design, with fairness for students informing all of the work done. This paper shares learnings from…

The purpose of the 2011 NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) Writing Framework is to describe how the new NAEP Writing Assessment is designed to measure students' writing at grades 4, 8, and 12. As the ongoing national indicator of the academic achievement of students in the United States, NAEP regularly collects information on…

The development and scoring of a recently introduced computer-based writing skills test is described. The test asks the examinee to edit a writing passage presented on a computer screen. Scoring difficulties are addressed through the combined use of option weighting and the sequential probability ratio test. (SLD)

Summarizes recent developments in the use of technology in schools and state-level testing programs. Presents results of two studies, one with 114 students and one with about 200 students, that indicate that written tests administered on paper underestimate the achievement of students accustomed to working with computers. (SLD)

The degree to which laptop and standard-size desktop computers are likely to produce comparable test results for the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) General Test was studied. Verbal, quantitative, and writing sections of a retired version of the GRE were used, since it was expected that performance on reading passages or mathematics items might…

Two studies investigated the comparability of scores from paper-and-pencil and computer-administered versions of the College-Level Examination Program (CLEP) General Examinations in mathematics and English composition. The first study used a prototype computer-administered version on each examination for 94 students for mathematics and 116 for…

Increased demands for colleges and universities to engage in outcomes assessment for accountability purposes have accelerated the need to bridge the gap between higher education practice and the fields of measurement, assessment, and evaluation. The "Handbook on Measurement, Assessment, and Evaluation in Higher Education" provides higher…