An assessment tool was designed and implemented to increase consistent application among and between multiple raters assessing students in driver education. The targeted population was students in grades 9 through 12 enrolled in drive education at a high school in an affluent suburb near a large city. The problem of a lack of a consistent…

The purpose of this project was to develop valid evaluation procedures for the selection of Container Equipment Operators (CEOs) in the shipping industry. A job analysis was conducted to identify the essential tasks of the CEO job. Site visits, a task inventory, and the determination of essential tasks were used in the job analysis. The skills and…

This book provides classroom teachers with the skills needed to interpret their students assessment results accurately and fairly. It is designed to assist teachers in planning instruction to suit the specific needs of their students. The chapters are: (1) Why Do You Need To Know about Assessment?; (2) What You Must Know about the Assessments You…

This Brief builds on the work of the National Association of State Boards of Education 1997 Study Group on State Assessment Systems by examining one of the state board actions that is most likely to capture the publics attention: setting cut scores on state assessments. This process involves a large measure of human judgment and politics and a…

One challenge associated with computerized adaptive testing (CAT) is the maintenance of test and item security while allowing for daily testing. An alternative to continually creating new pools containing an independent set of items would be to consider each CAT pool as a sample of items from a larger collection (referred to as a VAT) rather than…

A set of linear conditions on the item response functions is derived that guarantees identical observed-score distributions on two test forms. The conditions can be added as constraints to a linear programming model for test assembly that assembles a new test form to have an observed-score distribution optimally equated to the distribution of the…

The Minnesota Test of Critical Thinking (MTCT) has been designed to measure both critical thinking (CT) skills and a key disposition of critical reasoning: the willingness to evaluate arguments that are congruent with one's own goals and beliefs critically. The MTCT uses a taxonomy of CT skills derived from the American Philosophical Association's…

This paper discusses the validity of test preparation practices in the context of large-scale norm-referenced and criterion-referenced tests. It presents a framework for conceptualizing the various aspects of test preparation that includes the basic premises underlying the validity of the practices. Five areas of test preparation are outlined: (1)…

Social norming campaigns that work to show the disparity between students' perceptions of campus drinking and actual levels of drinking have proven to be successful in reducing alcohol use by college students. The premise of social norming is that human behavior is greatly influenced by perceptions of the population from which acceptance is…

This document is a supplement to the Test Content Description for the Georgia High School Test in Mathematics. The sample items are representative of items on the actual Georgia High School Tests. The strands (major areas) being tested are: (1) Number and Composition (17% to 19% of the test); (2) Data Analysis (19-21% of the test); (3) Measurement…

This document is a supplement to the Test Content Description for the Georgia High School Test in Science. The sample items are representative of items on the actual Georgia High School Tests. The strands (major areas) being tested are: (1) Process/Research Skills (30% to 32% of the test); (2) Physical Science (33% to 35% of the test); and…

This paper focuses on teacher testing issues related to job analysis, test specification development, reliability, and validity. It emphasizes the conceptualization and operational definition of appropriate validity evidence to assess the quality of licensure testing decisions. It is suggested that the process of job, or practice, analysis would…

This essay discusses the uses and consequences of high-stakes tests, which are sometimes believed to interfere with high quality education. High-stakes tests put extreme pressure on students and can create a narrow curriculum with reduced instructional time because of test prepping. Using tests for high-stakes decisions causes problems because…

The new Elementary and Secondary Education Act amendments require states to begin annual testing in grades 3 through 8 in reading and mathematics by the 2005-2006 school year. Only 16 states currently have grade-by-grade tests in reading and mathematics, and only 9 of those have tests aligned with their standards, as the law requires. The rest of…

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to review appropriate assessment techniques in prekindergarten through grade 3 settings and to serve as a catalyst for further discussion and work on the topic of developmentally appropriate accountability assessment. The discussion is based on the thesis that developmentally appropriate assessment and…