In this article, the author examines the construction of standardized testing not only as a cultural product, but as an imperialistic product. She conducts both a postcolonial discussion of the critique of testing and examines the ways that children of color are represented in the content. Recognizing first that the increased use of tests is part…

The effects of recent changes on the Scholastic Assessment Tests (SAT) on mathematics performance are being studied using data from 1993 and later. Early results show a relative gain for women in the verbal area but not in mathematics. Expected trends, including an effect from increased calculator use, are discussed. (SLD)

The experience of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards illustrates how issues of assessing the content representativeness of performance assessment can be addressed to ensure validity for certification procedures. Explores the challenges of collecting validation evidence when expert judgments of content are used. (SLD)

Explanations for an observed change in Rasch item parameters ("b" values) from consecutive administrations of a professional licensing examination were investigated. Analysis of covariance indicated that the change was not related to item position or type. It is hypothesized that the change is attributable to shifts in curriculum…

Using data from state and academic reports, an independent committee of researchers has evaluated the Massachusetts Teacher Tests. Scores are found to be highly unreliable, and the tests are found to contain questionable content. Suspending use of the tests is recommended. (SLD)

Educational tests used for accountability purposes must represent the content domains they purport to measure. When such tests are used to monitor progress over time, the consistency of the test content across years is important for ensuring that observed changes in test scores are due to student achievement rather than to changes in what the test…

The idea that validity should be considered a property of inferences, rather than of assessments, has developed slowly over the past century. In early writings about the validity of educational assessments, validity was defined as a property of an assessment. The most common definition was that an assessment was valid to the extent that it…

Many testing programs include a section of optional questions in addition to mandatory parts of a test. These optional parts of a test are not often truly parallel to one another, and groups of examinees selecting each optional test section are not equivalent to one another. This paper provides a general method based on missing-data methods for…

This paper compares two methods of establishing content validity, forced-choice judgmental review and a latent category judgmental review. It also compares content validity evidence with the results of a scale reliability analysis and makes recommendations of the two content validity procedures. Two different groups of graduate students enrolled…

Summarizes research supporting current beliefs in testing, identifies good assessment qualities, and reviews the current knowledge of test design. Standardized tests negatively affect academic program quality. Alternative assessments must be judged by their validity, reliability, consequences, fairness, generalizability, cognitive complexity,…

The College English Test (CET), designed in accordance with the requirements of the National College English Teaching Syllabus and as a result of the need for China's reform and its open-door policy in the 1980s, is the world's largest language test administered nationwide. Owing to its scientific approach, consistent marking, rigorous…

A model for constrained computerized adaptive testing is proposed in which the information in the test at the ability estimate is maximized subject to a large variety of possible constraints on the contents of the test. At each item-selection step, a full test is first assembled to have maximum information at the current ability estimate fixing…

The quality and the effectiveness of the 1992 New Jersey Grade 8 Early Warning Test (NJEWT) are assessed. Standardized tests possess clear advantages for educators, especially in the case of administration and scoring, but there are clear disadvantages as well, including the possibility of bias. Four criteria are applied to the NJEWT: adequacy,…

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of four item selection rules--(1) Fisher information (F), (2) Fisher information with a posterior distribution (FP), (3) Kullback-Leibler information with a posterior distribution (KP), and (4) completely randomized item selection (RN)--with respect to the precision of trait estimation and the…

A study was conducted to investigate: (1) the relationships between the results from various forms of assessment and the patterns of correlation across content areas; (2) how cognitive components correlate with the test results from different classroom assessments; and (3) how content areas affected the relationships. Data were collected from a…