It is so easy to criticize the SAT that most observers overlook the weaknesses of its architect, the College Board. This author contents that, until the latter is replaced, however, the former will never be fixed. The College Board has every incentive to create a complex, stressful, expensive college admissions system. Because it is accountable to…

The TOWRE-2 was developed to provide an efficient measure of two essential wordlevel reading skills, sight word reading and phonetic decoding skills. The Sight Word Efficiency (SWE) subtest assesses the number of real words that an individual can read from a vertical list within 45 s. This subtest is designed to measure the size of an individual's…

The OECD and its U.S. administrator, McGraw-Hill Education CTB, have recently concluded the first cycle of the OECD-Test for Schools in the U.S. This test is being marketed to local schools and is designed to compare 15-year-olds from individual participating schools against peers nationally and internationally using the OECD's PISA test as its…

This technical report provides detailed information regarding the technical, statistical, and measurement attributes of the New York State Testing Program (NYSTP) for the Grades 3-8 English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics 2017 Operational Tests. This report includes information about test content and test development, item (i.e., individual…

In order to remain relevant and useful, testing programs must periodically update their tests to match shifts in student populations and school curricula. One might think that because the publishers are offering a product, the responsibility for updates rests entirely on them. Publishers conduct studies to assure new content is appropriate. But…

This manual was written to provide technical information regarding the General Educational Development (GED®) test as evidence that the GED® test is technically sound. Throughout this manual, documentation is provided regarding the development of the GED® test and data collection activities, as well as evidence of reliability and validity. This…

This paper examines the utilization of construct validity in formative assessment for classroom-based purposes. Construct validity pertains to the notion that interpretations are made by educators who analyze test scores during formative assessment. The purpose of this paper is to note the challenges that educators face when interpreting these…

When students fail an examination at the end of their first year, they are offered a resit examination, which they merely need to pass to progress into the second year. These resits anecdotally provide a dual purpose of testing that students have achieved the required level of attainment to progress, and incentivising additional effort. This paper…

Approximately one-third of American freshmen at two-year and four-year colleges require remedial coursework and over 40 percent of employers rate new hires with a high school diploma as "deficient" in their overall preparation for entry-level jobs. Yet, over the past decade, as these students marched through America's public education…

The qualitative merit of examination or test-taking for diagnostic, placement and quality control is usually measured in terms of its appropriateness and the quality assurance of its outcomes. Consequently, it becomes inevitable that for any examination to be credible, it must possess key elements which are validity and reliability. These key…

This article proposes that sampling design effects have potentially huge unrecognized impacts on the results reported by large-scale district and state assessments in the United States. When design effects are unrecognized and unaccounted for they lead to underestimating the sampling error in item and test statistics. Underestimating the sampling…

Laboratory courses serve as important gateways to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. One of the challenges in assessing laboratory learning is to conduct meaningful and standardized practical exams, especially for large multisection laboratory courses. Laboratory practical exams in life sciences courses are frequently…

This technical report provides detailed information regarding the technical, statistical, and measurement attributes of the New York State Testing Program (NYSTP) for the Grades 3-8 Common Core English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics 2016 Operational Tests. This report includes information about test content and test development, item (i.e.,…

The need for increased exam security, improved test formats, more flexible scheduling, better measurement, and more efficient administrative processes has caused testing agencies to consider converting the administration of their exams from paper-and-pencil to computer-based testing (CBT). Many decisions must be made in order to provide an optimal…

Considering consequences in the evaluation of validity is not new although it is still debated by Paul E. Newton and others. The argument-based approach to validity entails an interpretative argument that explicitly identifies the proposed interpretations and uses of test scores and a validity argument that provides a structure for evaluating the…