Performance assessment is a type of educational assessment in which judgments are made about student knowledge and skills based on observation of student behavior or inspection of student products. In dealing with the issue of fairness in performance assessment, educators are confronted with some dilemmas. Assuring equality in performance…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is an enormous and enormously ambitious project. It generates data of a richness and complexity beyond any simple survey. The broad utilization of the information it provides can be aided through the use of more evocative data displays. In this report, the uses to which data tables are put is…

Studies evaluating hypotheses about sources of differential item functioning (DIF) are classified into two categories: observational studies evaluating operational items and randomized DIF studies evaluating specially constructed items. For observational studies, advice is given for item classification, sample selection, the matching criterion,…

The development of the Home and Family Questionnaire (HFQ) is described and exploratory factor analyses and initial reliability studies are reported. The HFQ, which incorporates many of the items from the HOME Observation Inventory for Elementary School Children developed by B. M. Caldwell and R. H. Bradley (1984), evaluates home setting and home…

Test-taking skills and methods used to prepare students for taking an examination are independent of knowledge and skills in the content area being tested. Test-taking skills do not give students the correct answers, but do allow the student to concentrate on answering questions without being confused by the mechanics of the test. Students who…

The development of a scoring tool to be used with alternative and authentic assessment strategies is discussed, describing the parts of such a tool and the development process. The design is based on the Innovation Configuration (IC) process of the Concerns-Based Adoption Model. To begin, components of the test task are identified. Variations that…

A series of computer simulations was run to measure the relationship between testlet validity and the factors of item pool size and testlet length for both adaptive and linearly constructed testlets. Results confirmed the generality of earlier empirical findings of H. Wainer and others (1991) that making a testlet adaptive yields only marginal…

This report was developed as part of a Swedish study to examine whether videotelephones can be used to develop the communicative ability of individuals with mental retardation and whether access to telecommunications increased the possibilities of social integration. Communication was viewed as sharing a feeling, action, or experience with another…

Traditionally, item difficulty has been defined in terms of the performance of examinees. For test development purposes, a more useful concept would be some kind of intrinsic item difficulty, defined in terms of the item's content, context, or characteristics and the task demands set by the item. In this investigation, the measurement literature…

Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS) were developed to score responses from a previously designed police written communication test that lacked reliability. Rating scales for each of the 9 dimensions of the test consisted of the scale definition and a 5-point continuum, with the scores of 5, 3, and 1 defined by specified behavioral…

A framework for categorizing constructed-response items was developed in which items were ordered on a continuum from multiple-choice to presentation/performance according to the degree of constraint placed on the examinee's response. Two investigations were carried out to evaluate the validity of this framework. In the first investigation, 27…

The aim of this study was to develop a procedure that could be used to appraise the cognitive features of subject (achievement) tests. Cognitive taxonomies and an accompanying coding scheme were developed and applied to the Graduate Record Examinations subject tests in Psychology and Literature in English. The taxonomies were based on the manifest…

The final versions of nationally developed standards for science education have recently been published for use by practitioners, and it is obvious that these standards will have some influence on how science education is conducted. The effects of the standards on teaching and curriculum development can be anticipated, but their effects on…

When norm-referenced tests are developed for instructional purposes, to assess the effects of educational programs, or for educational research purposes, it can be very important to conduct item and test analyses. These analyses can evaluate the quality of items and of the test as a whole. Such analyses can also be employed to revise and improve…

This booklet presents the Reading Framework for the 1992, 1994, and 1998 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Developed through a national consensus process as part of an effort to move assessment forward, the framework presented in the booklet is more consistent with contemporary knowledge about reading and more relevant to the…