Evidence from recent research suggests that in the UK the public perception of errors in national examinations is that they are simply mistakes; events that are preventable. This perception predominates over the more sophisticated technical view that errors arise from many sources and create an inevitable variability in assessment outcomes. The…

This article characterizes and measures errors in the 2010 National Research Council (NRC) assessment of research-doctorate programs in geography. This article provides a conceptual model for data-based sources of uncertainty and reports on a quantitative assessment of NRC research data uncertainty for a particular geography doctoral program.…

Inappropriate assessment procedures result in the misdiagnosis, misidentification, and misplacement of many African American students in special education. This article discusses poor teacher judgment, lack of cultural awareness among teachers, cultural discontinuity between home and school, and bias inherent in current tests used in special…