To demonstrate how methodologies for assessing reading comprehension can grow out of views of the construct suggested in the reading research literature, we constructed tasks and carried out psychometric analyses that were framed in accordance with 2 leading reading models. In estimating item difficulty and subsequently, examinee proficiency, an…

A new variant of the iterative "data = fit + residual" data-analytical approach described by Mosteller and Tukey is proposed and implemented in the context of item response theory psychometric models. Posterior probabilities from a Bayesian mixture model of a Rasch item response theory model and an unscalable latent class are expressed…

This article presents the author's observations on Neil Dorans's NCME Career Award Address: "The Contestant Perspective on Taking Tests: Emanations from the Statue within." He calls attention to some points that Dr. Dorans made in his address, and offers his thoughts in response.

A new entry in the testing lexicon is through-course summative assessment, a system consisting of components administered periodically during the academic year. As defined in the Race to the Top program, these assessments are intended to yield a yearly summative score for accountability purposes. They must provide for both individual and group…

Background/Context: This article explains the idea of a neopragmatic postmodernist test theory and offers some thoughts about what changing notions concerning the nature of and meanings assigned to knowledge imply for educational assessment, present and future. Purpose: Advances in the learning sciences--particularly situative and sociocognitive…

If data exhibit multidimensionality, key conditional independence assumptions of unidimensional models do not hold. The current work pursues posterior predictive model checking, a flexible family of model-checking procedures, as a tool for criticizing models due to unaccounted for dimensions in the context of item response theory. Factors…

Standardizing aspects of assessments has long been recognized as a tactic to help make evaluations of examinees fair. It reduces variation in irrelevant aspects of testing procedures that could advantage some examinees and disadvantage others. However, recent attention to making assessment accessible to a more diverse population of students…

In this paper we describe the development and refinement of "evidence rules" and "measurement models" within the "evidence model" of the "evidence-centered design" (ECD) framework in the context of the "Packet Tracer" digital learning environment of the "Cisco Networking Academy." Using…

"Evidence-centered design" (ECD) is a comprehensive framework for describing the conceptual, computational and inferential elements of educational assessment. It emphasizes the importance of articulating inferences one wants to make and the evidence needed to support those inferences. At first blush, ECD and "educational data…

From a contemporary perspective on cognition, the between-persons variables in trait-based arguments in educational assessment are absurd over-simplifications. Yet, for a wide range of applications, they work. Rather than seeing such variables as independently-existing characteristics of people, we can view them as summaries of patterns in…

An educational assessment embodies an argument from a handful of observations of what students say, do or make in a handful of particular circumstances, to what they know or can do in what kinds of situations more broadly. This article discusses ways in which research into the nature and development of expertise can help assessment designers…

Relationships between Bayesian ability estimates and the parameters of a normal population distribution are derived in the context of classical test theory. Analogies are provided for use as approximations in work with item response theory (IRT). The following issues are addressed: (1) the relationship between the distribution of the latent…

Large-scale educational assessments differ from familiar educational measurements by attempting to provide information about the levels and natures of skills in populations rather than in individuals. That the distinct purposes of assessment require different methodologies than individual measurement was recognized by the development of…

Relationships between Bayesian ability estimates and the parameters of a normal population distribution are derived in the context of classical test theory. Formulas are presented for practical work with Bayesian ability estimates, and a numerical illustration is provided. (SLD)

People use external knowledge representations (EKRs) to identify, depict, transform, store, share, and archive information. Learning how to work with EKRs is central to becoming proficient in virtually every discipline. As such, EKRs play central roles in curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Five key roles of EKRs in educational assessment are…