Computerized testing, including the widely used MAP test, has infiltrated the public schools in Milwaukee and across the nation, bringing with it a frightening future for public education. High-stakes standardized tests can be scored almost immediately via the internet, and testing companies can now easily link districts to their online data…

This study investigated the application of multidimensional item response theory (IRT) models to validate test structure and dimensionality. Multiple content areas or domains within a single subject often exist in large-scale achievement tests. Such areas or domains may cause multidimensionality or local item dependence, which both violate the…

Standardized testing is ubiquitous in Japan. Inexpensive and easily mass distributed, their use has been encouraged at every level of the education system. Over the past thirty years, external testing agencies have been increasingly relied upon to make standardized tests for use as benchmarks in the education system and in the private sector.…

This review of research concerning reading comprehension provides incites into what has been learned from 1995 to the present. Reading comprehension is defined as a complex activity that involves several variables. Reading strategies are discussed and how they relate to reading comprehension. Testing is another concern regarding how reading…

This dissertation attempts to unify two reductionist hypotheses: that there is no relational difference between specifiers and complements, and that verbs do not have thematic arguments. I argue that these two hypotheses actually bear on each other and that we get a better theory if we pursue both of them. The thesis is centered around the…

This paper illustrates the application of existing guidelines to develop a test grounded in theoretical perspectives and empirical findings in the area of problem solving. By documenting this process, the paper outlines the challenges test developers face when seeking to construct a theory/research-driven test, discusses the decisions made at…

Paul E. Newton's article is valuable in many ways, especially for clarifying confusions and inconsistencies in the assessment business. Most importantly, he points out confusions that persist and where open discussion will help us understand what we say and what we mean to say. But I will focus here on the only faults I find in the article: three…

Paul E. Newton provides an insightful and scholarly overview of central issues in validity theory. As he notes, many of the conceptual problems in validity theory derive from the fact that the word "validity" has two meanings. First, it indicates "whether a test measures what it purports to measure." This is a factual claim about the psychometric…

Paul E. Newton is to be commended for addressing as challenging a topic as the clarification of the concept of validity. The impetus for this foray is Newton's judgment that, despite decades of development, the definition and elaboration of the term test validity in the 1999 "Standards" retains sufficient ambiguity to permit, if not invite, both…

Lee Cronbach once expressed the view that all roads lead to construct validity. In looking to clarify the consensus definition of validity, and its place in assessment, Newton is also led to the troublesome idea of construct validity. To be sure, he addresses other validity issues, but in this commentary, I will restrict my attention to construct…

In his article, Paul E. Newton has conducted a review of selected perspectives on validity theory with the goal of disambiguating the definition of validity and describing a consensus definition of validity. Newton provides a nuanced discussion of the evolution of the concept of validity over the years. His Focus article has two major goals: (1)…

Evaluative conditioning (EC) is the valence change of a (typically neutral) stimulus (CS) that is due to the previous pairing with another (typically valent) stimulus (US). It has been repeatedly shown that EC effects are stronger or existent only if participants know which US was paired with which CS. Knowledge of the CS-US pairings is usually…

Language testing has seen unprecedented expansion during the first part of the 21st century. As a result there is an increasing need for the language testing profession to consider more precisely what it means by "assessment literacy" and to articulate its role in the creation of new pedagogic materials and programs in language testing…

In this study, a ranking strategy was evaluated for comparing subgroups' change using identical, equated, and nonidentical measures. Four empirical data sets were evaluated, each of which contained examinees' scores on two occasions, where the two occasions' scores were obtained on a single identical measure, on two equated tests, and on two…

This article illustrates how a new framework for conceptualising comparability has the potential to help assessment professionals to understand and to conduct debate on linking theory and practice. The framework was used as a lens through which to study a corpus of research reports, from which a narrative was constructed to characterise the…