Cheating attracts a significant amount of attention in conversations about assessment, and with good reason: if students cheat, we cannot be sure they have met the learning outcomes of their course. In this conceptual article we question the attention given to cheating as a concept and argue that the broader concept of validity is a more important…

Accountability mandates often prompt assessment of student learning gains (e.g., value-added estimates) via achievement tests. The validity of these estimates have been questioned when performance on tests is low stakes for students. To assess the effects of motivation on value-added estimates, we assigned students to one of three test consequence…

This article describes key findings from contemporary research on screening for early primary grade students in the area of mathematics. Existing studies were used to illustrate the constructs most worth measuring and the diverse strategies that researchers used to study potential measures. The authors discussed the strengths and weaknesses of…

The No Child Left Behind Act is a mandate from the federal government for education to increase student performance and school accountability. As a result of this mandate, many states have issued the use of high-stakes standardized tests as a means of monitoring schools' accountability. New York State administers the English Language Arts (ELA)…

Reports findings of a study conducted at a midwestern university to determine whether a battery of basic skills tests would accurately predict student success in professional education courses. Concludes that test performance was consistent with the general grade point average throughout the college. (FL)