This short article notes the disruption to public examinations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and resultant lockdowns. This provides a context to examine the way normreferencing controls the distribution of grades in England's test and examination system. This is viewed as 'the elephant in the exam room', something accepted, normalisedand hidden…

The FitnessGram program has prioritized the use of evidence-based, criterion-referenced standards to advance health-related fitness assessments in physical education. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) highlighted the importance of strength and power for youth fitness assessment and surveillance. The report specifically recommended the use of…

This paper examines how assessment and grading practices have evolved post COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, more programs have begun implementing Competency-Based Education (CBE) in their practice. This article offers suggestions for higher education institutions and faculty considering implementation of CBE in their assessment practices.

Criterion-referenced testing is usually applied to the assessment of achievement. In this article, we suggest how it can also be applied to the assessment of adaptive intelligence, that is, intelligence as adaptation to the environment. In the era of the Anthropocene, we argue that adaptive intelligence is what is most important not only for…

Ipsative assessment is an approach to evaluating student progress that covers a wide range of assessment and feedback practices. In ipsative assessment, students receive an indication of their achievement that represents the extent of their improvements from their previous assessed task(s) in relation to one or more objectives. In turn, ipsative…

Large-scale language testing uses statistical information to account for the quality of an assessment system. In this reflection article, I explain how basic statistics can be used meaningfully in the context of classroom language assessment. The paper explores a series of statistical calculations that can be used to examine test scores and…

Whenever classification decisions are made on educational tests, such as pass/fail, or basic, proficient, or advanced, the consistency and accuracy of those decisions should be estimated and reported. Methods for estimating the reliability of classification decisions made on the basis of educational tests are well-established (e.g., Rudner, 2001;…

Fitness assessment can be an important and useful component of physical education. This article discusses how to avoid the pitfalls that lead to negative student experiences with fitness assessment and presents research-based suggestions for creating a positive experience for all students. A section to help teachers understand how to use fitness…

Fifty years ago, Robert Glaser introduced the concept of criterion-referenced measurement in an article in American Psychologist. Its early proponents predicted that this measurement strategy would revolutionize education. But has it lived up to its promise? W. James Popham explores this question by looking at the history of criterion-referenced…

This article summarizes some of the technical issues that add to the complexity of language testing. It focuses in particular on the criterion-referenced nature of the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines-Speaking; and it proposes a criterion-referenced interpretation of the ACTFL guidelines for reading and listening. It then demonstrates how using…

Proliferation of prescriptive models in an "engineering" field is not a sign of its maturity. Quite the opposite. Materials engineering, for example, meets the criterion of parsimony. Sadly, the very large number of models in "instructional design," putatively an engineering field, raises questions about its status. Can the…

This paper recapitulates the aims of the CEFR and highlights three aspects of good practice in exploiting it: firstly, taking as a starting point the real-world language ability that is the aim of all modern language learners; secondly, the exploitation of good descriptors as transparent learning objectives in order to involve and empower the…

In adolescence research, the treatment of measurement reliability is often fragmented, and it is not always clear how different reliability coefficients are related. We show that generalizability theory (G-theory) is a comprehensive framework of measurement reliability, encompassing all other reliability methods (e.g., Pearson "r,"…

In the context of increasing interest and support for a developmental conception of giftedness, there is perhaps an ever-greater need for off-level testing for students with high potential. Off-level testing is no longer merely a single-use tool that helps administrators identify students for gifted programs, but provides essential information…

The concept of teacher accountability assumes teachers will use data-driven decision making to plan and deliver appropriate and effective instruction to their students. In order to do so, teachers must be able to accurately interpret the data that is given to them, and that requires the knowledge of some basic concepts of assessment and…