Over the past few decades, those who take tests in the United States have exhibited increasing diversity with respect to native language. Standard psychometric procedures for ensuring item and test fairness that have existed for some time were developed when test-taking groups were predominantly native English speakers. A better understanding of…

Little more than half of college freshmen will get a degree, but initiatives are emerging to boost college completion. The gap between access and completion has put a new focus on ramping up retention--the percentage of freshmen who return to the same institution for a second year of college. And that's a task, observers say, for precollegiate…

Just like all the high-stakes tests that determine students' futures nowadays, The Chorizo Test is a standardized test rooted in the culture of the test makers. It was originally created to be used with students in teacher training programs to sensitize them to the pitfalls inherent in standardized pencil-and-paper tests, such as linguistic bias…

Stubbornly high college remediation rates have revealed a painful equation: High school completion does not equal college readiness. That disconnection has prompted national leaders to focus like never before on figuring out how to ensure that high school graduates are truly ready to succeed in college. In that quest, a California program is often…

Many Pennsylvania colleges and universities require that teacher candidates pass a standardized assessment in order to gain formal entry in to their education programs. Standardized tests are also required for Level I teacher certification within Pennsylvania. The initial assessment required of all Pennsylvania preservice teachers for…

In 2000, the National Reading Panel (NRP) identified scientifically based reading instructional practices in the five key areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency vocabulary, and comprehension. The purpose of this study was to determine the strength of the relationship between the degree of implementation of scientifically based reading…

In large-scale assessments, such as state-wide testing programs, national sample-based assessments, and international comparative studies, there are many steps involved in the measurement and reporting of student achievement. There are always sources of inaccuracies in each of the steps. It is of interest to identify the source and magnitude of…

Educators and policy makers in the United States have relied on tests to measure educational progress for more than 150 years, and have used the results for many purposes. They have tried minimum competency testing; portfolios; multiple-choice items, brief and extended constructed-response items; and more. They have contended with concerns about…

In this study, differential item functioning (DIF) methods utilizing 14 different matching variables were applied to assess DIF in the constructed-response (CR) items from 6 forms of 3 mixed-format tests. Results suggested that the methods might produce distinct patterns of DIF results for different tests and testing programs, in that the DIF…

With increased emphasis on accountability, the use of low-stakes test data to make high-stakes decisions about program effectiveness is on the rise. In order to make valid inferences about what students know and can do, it is crucial to understand the consequences of low and high stakes in testing contexts. As a result, with a sample comprised of…

Scope and Method of Study: This study focused on the development and use of the AT-SAT test battery and the Initial En Route Qualification training course for the selection, training, and evaluation of air traffic controller candidates. The Pearson product moment correlation coefficient was used to measure the linear relationship between the…

In educational tests, subscores are often generated from a portion of the items in a larger test. Guidelines based on mean squared error are proposed to indicate whether subscores are worth reporting. Alternatives considered are direct reports of subscores, estimates of subscores based on total score, combined estimates based on subscores and…

This paper presents a list of frequently asked questions about the 5th Edition GED (General Educational Development) Test. This paper answers the following questions: (1) With the announcement of altered plans for a 5th Edition GED Test release, will the current 2002 test series continue beyond January 1, 2012?; (2) What should I tell the public,…

The equating process links scores from different editions of the same test. For testing programs that build nearly parallel forms to the same explicit content and statistical specifications and administer forms under the same conditions, the linkings between the forms are expected to be equatings. Score equity assessment (SEA) provides a useful…

The purpose of this issue brief is to provide a comprehensive overview of the policies behind the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and to outline some of the initiatives now in place to address the needs of English language learners (ELLs) in relation to the CCSS. This issue brief contains the appendices: (1) Assessment Consortia Time Lines; and…