This paper explores the potential of abductive reasoning to enhance the analysis of international large-scale assessments which have traditionally relied on deductive and inductive reasoning. While these conventional methods have provided valuable insights into global student achievement, they often fail to capture the complexity of educational…

Businesses use data to enhance operational performance, creating demand for professionally trained data/business analytics graduates. Universities offer a variety of academic programs in response to the increasing labor market demands. Yet, research on how well educational offerings adapt to market demand is scant. This paper aims to evaluate how…

For many years state education agencies (SEAs) have sought to create assessment systems that include all students, including students with disabilities. In order to improve outcomes for students with disabilities, there is an urgent need for cross-agency collaboration between special education and assessment offices, but other offices (e.g.,…

State education agencies are sitting on rich repositories of quantitative and qualitative assessment data. This document is designed to provide a conceptual framework and implementation guidance that can help agency leadership leverage and interrogate student performance data in systematic ways for reporting, outreach, and planning purposes. The…

This volume centres the notion of "chance" in education as a key concept in contemporary education -- relating to aspects like accountability, datafication, or international large-scale assessments -- and discusses the impact that the historical desire to "tame" this notion has had on present-day educational policy and…

I review opportunities and threats that widely accessible Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered services present for educational statistics and measurement. Algorithmic and computational advances continue to improve approaches to item generation, scale maintenance, test security, test scoring, and score reporting. Predictable misuses of AI for…

Assessment and institutional research offices have too much data and too little time. Standard reporting often crowds out opportunities for innovative research. Fortunately, advancements in data science now offer a clear solution. It is equal parts technique and philosophy. The first and easiest step is to modernize data work. This column…

Traditional validation approaches fail to account for the ways oppressive systems (e.g. racism, radical nationalism) impact the test design and development process. To disrupt this legacy of white supremacy, we illustrate how justice-oriented, antiracist validation (JAV) framework can be applied to construct articulation and validation, data…

Background: Over the last 20 years, educational large-scale assessments have undergone dramatic changes moving away from simple paper-pencil assessments to innovative, technology-based assessments. This comprehensive switch has led to some rather technical improvements such as identifying early guessing or improving standardization. Objectives: At…

This essay examines contemporary digital educational assessment and argues that there are underlying problematic values and consequences entailed by the datafication of education as coupled with assessment practices. By applying Dewey's work concerning curriculum, aims, growth, and the conception of democracy through education to current methods,…

Though we have recently witnessed the "exponential production of digital data to measure, analyze, and predict educational performance" (Salajan & Jules, this volume), there has not been sufficient attention given to the quantitative methods that are used to process and transform this data in order to arrive at findings related to…

This book explores the transformative role of artificial intelligence in educational assessment, catering to researchers, educators, administrators, policymakers, and technologists involved in shaping the future of education. It delves into the foundations of AI-assisted assessment, innovative question types and formats, data analysis techniques,…

Artificial Intelligence is at the heart of modern society with computers now capable of making process decisions in many spheres of human activity. In education, there has been intensive growth in systems that make formal and informal learning an anytime, anywhere activity for billions of people through online open educational resources and…

It's been nearly 25 years since the first MCAS tests were taken. Since then, the test and the state's accountability system have brought resources to underfunded schools, highlighted inequities in our education system, and pushed Massachusetts to first in the nation in academics. But, with progress stalling, a new understanding of the importance…

The chapters in this online volume comprise the TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center's technical report of the methods and procedures used to develop, implement, and report the results of TIMSS 2019. There were various technical challenges because TIMSS 2019 was the initial phase of the transition to eTIMSS, with approximately half the…