Validity evidence based on test content is of essential importance in educational testing. One source for such evidence is an alignment study, which helps evaluate the congruence between tested objectives and those specified in the curriculum. However, the results of an alignment study do not always sufficiently capture the degree to which a test…

This paper describes a methodology, called Profile Analysis via Multidimensional Scaling (PAMS), designed to identify major patterns of variables and to study the relationships into which those patterns enter. Patterns of variables are here called profiles. The PAMS procedure has been adapted to characteristics of the National Assessment of…