In this report, Joan Herman, director for the National Center for Research, on Evaluation, Standards, & Student Testing (CRESST) recommends that the new generation of science standards be based on lessons learned from current practice and on recent examples of standards-development methodology. In support of this, recent, promising efforts to…

Background/Context: There are few empirical studies exploring the alleged conflict between the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine what impact the No Child Left Behind Act has had on students with disabilities. Research Design: Specifically,…

In this article, we introduce a person-fit statistic called the hierarchy consistency index (HCI) to help detect misfitting item response vectors for tests developed and analyzed based on a cognitive model. The HCI ranges from -1.0 to 1.0, with values close to -1.0 indicating that students respond unexpectedly or differently from the responses…

Assessments labeled as formative have been offered as a means to improve student achievement. But labels can be a powerful way to miscommunicate. For an assessment use to be appropriately labeled "formative," both empirical evidence and reasoned arguments must be offered to support the claim that improvements in student achievement can be linked…

In this commentary, the author addresses what is referred to as the deterministic input, noisy "and" gate (DINA) model. The author mentions concerns with how this model has been formulated and presented. In particular, the author points out that there is a lack of recognition of the confounding of profiles that generally arises and then discusses…

Rupp and Templin (2008) do a good job at describing the ever expanding landscape of Diagnostic Classification Models (DCM). In many ways, their review article clearly points to some of the questions that need to be answered before DCMs can become part of the psychometric practitioners toolkit. Apart from the issues mentioned in this article that…

This article traces quality assurance and evaluation (QAE) developments in Finnish compulsory schooling. The central question is this: Is there a Finnish model of QAE? We conclude that it may be a rhetorical overstatement to speak about a specific Finnish 'Model' of QAE in a strong sense. However, neither is it valid to conclude that what happens…

The present highly developed status of psychological and educational testing in the United States is in part the result of many efforts over the past 100 years to develop economical and reliable methods of scoring. The present article traces a number of methods, ranging from hand scoring to present-day computer applications, stimulated by the need…

As more colleges move to "test optional" admissions policies, the debate over the utility and interpretation of standardized-test scores continues. In this article, the author interviews Daniel Koretz, a professor of education at Harvard University and author of "Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us". Koretz…

The intention of this article is to illustrate how assessment is an "emotional practice" (Hargreaves, 1998) for teachers and how paying attention to the emotions involved can provide useful information about assessment practices to teachers, teacher-educators and policy-reformers. Through presenting a review of research literature it makes three…

Opposes Holt's suggestion to eliminate testing; states that the evils he suggested are not inherent in testing but in test administration and interpretation. Supports material-imbedded tests using unobtrusive measures. (MH)

This paper illustrates how graphical analyses can enhance the interpretation and understanding of multidimensional item response theory (IRT) analyses. Examples of different graphical representations are presented, including item response surfaces, information vectors, and centroid plots of trait distributions. All graphs are intended to…