In the present offering we challenge the presumption that the educational testing of students provides objective information about such students. This presumption largely rests on an empiricist account of science. In light of mounting criticism, however, empiricist foundationalism has given way to a social epistemology. From this standpoint,…

Asking college students how much they have learned or grown is a common assessment practice in student affairs and elsewhere. Unfortunately, recent research suggests that these self-reported gains do a very poor job of measuring actual student learning and growth. This paper provides an overview of the psychological process of how students likely…

Standardizing aspects of assessments has long been recognized as a tactic to help make evaluations of examinees fair. It reduces variation in irrelevant aspects of testing procedures that could advantage some examinees and disadvantage others. However, recent attention to making assessment accessible to a more diverse population of students…

The proliferation of instruments reporting learning/cognitive style with school pupils is of particular interest, because most research on them focuses on applications in higher education, training and the adult workplace, where criticisms of their integrity, reliability and validity have been significant. This study examines two such popular…

In the attempt to identify or prevent unfair tests, both quantitative analyses and logical evaluation are often used. For the most part, fairness evaluation is a pragmatic attempt at determining whether procedural or substantive due process has been accorded to either a group of test takers or an individual. In both the individual and comparative…

Placement exams are high-stakes assessments that determine many students' college trajectories. More than half of entering students at community colleges are placed into developmental education in at least one subject, based primarily on scores from these assessments, yet recent research fails to find evidence that placement into remediation…

The five papers in this special issue of the "Journal of Applied Testing Technology" address fundamental issues of validity when tests are modified or accommodations are provided to English Language Learners (ELL) or students with disabilities. Three papers employed differential item functioning (DIF) and factor analysis and found the…

Authentic assessment is a growing alternative to conventional testing. This research-to-practice article describes a framework for implementing authentic assessment. The R-E-A-L framework shows how roles, equipment, assessment tools, and location can be incorporated into early childhood practices.

The inclusion of young children with disabilities has remained a function of the Head Start program since its inception in the 1960s when the United States Congress mandated that children with disabilities comprise 10% of the Head Start enrollment (Zigler & Styfco, 2000). Standardized, norm-referenced tests used to identify children with…

This study examines the appropriateness of a large-scale state standards-based English-Language Arts (ELA) assessment for students who are deaf or hard of hearing by comparing the internal test structures for these students to students without disabilities. The Grade 4 and 8 ELA assessments were analyzed via a series of parcel-level exploratory…

The special educator must be aware of possible sources of error in assessment of children with learning problems. Sources of error can be attributed to unconscious examiner bias, ambiguous test responses, linguistic and cultural differences of the examiner and examinee, previous test-taking experience, and problems with test reliability and…

Examines the validity of large-scale educational assessment, suggesting that construct validity is insufficient for assuming an achievement measure's internal validity and that the uses of assessment results affect external validity. Discusses the role of learning theory in large-scale assessment, purposes of large-scale assessment, item types and…

Studies processes in 49 Canadian K-13 classrooms to identify teachers' student achievement evaluation methods. Teacher interviews and categorization of their testing instruments showed teachers beyond early primary grades used evaluations mainly to generate marks for reporting purposes. Such reports seen as reaffirming existing judgments, rather…

Identifies the underlying concepts of student evaluation. Offers suggestions for evaluating musical achievement. Maintains that all evaluations are subjective, and suggests techniques for minimizing subjectivity. Considers various test formats, and discusses objectives for both classroom and performance achievement. (RW)

Reviews medical and psychoeducational assessment models, illustrating need to expand assessment procedure database resulting from the measurement errors in traditional assessment practices. Introduces assessment model emphasizing collection of classroom-based information over time and evaluating data more critically. Suggests model facilitates…