Papay (2011) noticed that teacher value-added measures (VAMs) from a statistical model using the most common pre/post testing timeframe--current-year spring relative to previous spring (SS)--are essentially unrelated to those same teachers' VAMs when instead using next-fall relative to current-fall (FF). This is concerning since this choice--made…

All educational testing is intended to have consequences, which are assumed to be beneficial, but tests may also have unintended, negative consequences (Messick, 1989). The issue is particularly important in the case of large-scale standardized tests, such as Australia's "National Assessment Program--Literacy and Numeracy" (NAPLAN), the…

A critical component of the standard setting process is collecting evidence to evaluate the recommended cut scores and their use for making decisions and classifying students based on test performance. Kane (1994, 2001) proposed a framework by which practitioners can identify and evaluate evidence of the results of the standard setting from (1)…

International large-scale assessments are now part of the educational landscape in many countries and often feed into major policy decisions. Yet, such assessments also provide data sets for secondary analysis that can address key issues of concern to educators and policymakers alike. Traditionally, such secondary analyses have been based on a…

The first large-scale, nationwide academic achievement testing program using Stanford Achievement Test (Stanford) for deaf and hard-of-hearing children in the United States started in 1969. Over the past three decades, the Stanford has served as a benchmark in the field of deaf education for assessing student academic achievement. However, the…

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…

Teachers are now experiencing the age of quantitative test-driven assessment, in which there is little weight accorded to teacher-based judgement about student progress. In the Australian context, the NAPLaN test has become a driving force in school and teacher accountability. The language of NAPLaN is one of bands and numerical scores and…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) program is a series of periodic assessments administered nationally to samples of students and designed to measure different content areas. This article describes a multi-year study that focused on the breadth of the development, administration, maintenance, and renewal of the assessments in…

Multiple uses of the same assessment may present challenges for both the design and use of an assessment. Little advice, however, has been given to assessment developers as to how to understand the phenomena of multiple assessment use and meet the challenges these present. Particularly problematic is the case in which an assessment is used for…

In practice, vertical scales have been continually used to measure students' achievement progress across several grade levels and have been considered very challenging psychometric procedures. Recently, such practices have been drawing many criticisms. The major criticisms focus on dimensionality and construct equivalence of the latent trait or…

In this technical report, we provide reliability and validity evidence for the easyCBM[R] Reading measures for grade 2 (word and passage reading fluency and multiple choice reading comprehension). Evidence for reliability includes internal consistency and item invariance. Evidence for validity includes concurrent, predictive, and construct…

Registered nurses (n=368) participated in a skills recredentialing program in which competencies were assessed by a knowledge test and performance test under simulated conditions and evaluator ratings in actual patient-care situations. No significant differences in results between the simulated and actual conditions support the validity of the…

In this series of studies, we investigated the technical adequacy of three curriculum-based measures used as benchmarks and for monitoring progress in three critical reading- related skills: fluency, reading comprehension, and vocabulary. In particular, we examined the following easyCBM measurement across grades 3-7 at fall, winter, and spring…

How state educational authorities in Kentucky use statewide test data to rank the state's 178 school districts was studied, using data from the "Kentucky Essential Skills Test: Statewide Testing Results" (1987). The methods used, means of refining those methods, the fairness/accuracy/validity of resulting interpretations, and problems…

In state assessment programs in which performance has no real immediate consequence for the individual examinee, the issue of examinee motivation arises. Some examinees may respond to questions in ways that do not reflect their real knowledge of the test domain. In this study, a new approach was developed to identify students who have responded to…