States are increasingly interested in including measures of student achievement growth, or "value- added," in evaluating teachers. Annual state assessments, however, which are the typical measure of student growth, usually cover only reading and math teachers and only in grades 4-8. These state assessments thus cannot …

States and school districts are exploring alternatives to state tests for measuring teachers' contributions to student learning. One approach applies statistical value-added methods to alternative student assessments such as commercially available tests and end-of course tests. The evidence suggests that these methods can reliably distinguish…

This paper addresses likely error rates for measuring teacher and school performance in the upper elementary grades using value-added models applied to student test score gain data. Using realistic performance measurement system schemes based on hypothesis testing, we develop error rate formulas based on OLS and Empirical Bayes estimators.…

This article demonstrates the use of a new class of model-free cumulative sum (CUSUM) statistics to detect person fit given the responses to a linear test. The fundamental statistic being accumulated is the likelihood ratio of two probabilities. The detection performance of this CUSUM scheme is compared to other model-free person-fit statistics…

This document describes the breadth of the research that the ETS (Educational Testing Service) Research & Development division is conducting in 2010. This portfolio will be updated in early 2011 to reflect changes to existing projects and new projects that were added after this document was completed. The research described in this portfolio falls…

Distance Education has globally become one of the important solutions for increasing admission into the universities, decongesting campuses and efficient utilization of time and space. To ensure the sustainability of the programmes' noble objectives calls for periodic re-evaluation of its modus operandi including the assessment of the perception…

This document describes the breadth of the research being conducted in 2008 by the Research and Development Division at Educational Testing Service (ETS). The research described falls into three large categories: (1) Research supported by the ETS research allocation; (2) Research funded by testing programs at ETS; and (3) Research funded by…

Six factors were examined in a national attitude survey: test use, anxiety, validity, fairness, judging one's own performance, and evaluation in general. Affective reactions of students toward evaluation were dependent on judging their own performance and on general affective attitudes toward school and society. (CP)

This report describes the midterm and final tests administered to pupils in the Quality Assurance classes using the Learning Mastery System (LMS). Results are reported separately for both the Bank Street and Harper & Row versions of LMS. Means, standard deviations, and frequency distributions are given for the subscores and total for each test…

Computer adaptive testing is the study of scoring tests and questions based on assumptions concerning the mathematical relationship between examinees' ability and the examinees' responses. Adaptive student tests, which are based on item response theory (IRT), have many advantages over conventional tests. We use the least square method, a…

This study was designed to address two frequent criticisms of the SAT essay--that essay length is the best predictor of scores, and that there is an advantage in using more "sophisticated" examples as opposed to personal experience. The study was based on 2,820 essays from the first three administrations of the new SAT. Each essay was…

Quantitative and qualitative assessment of the adaptations of The Program for Assessing Youth Employment Skills (PAYES) and the Iowa Career Education Inventory are proposed to assess the impact of career education for the handicapped student. Evidence is offered for the conceptual compatibility of the Iowa instrument with Brolin's, Johnson's and…

Computer-based, criterion-referenced testing can be a humanizing process if it is used for diagnostic and remedial purposes in helping individual students to attain their maximum levels of achievement. The procedure is based upon the proposition that certain classroom situations involving cognitive acquisition, when tested at equally spaced time…

Information regarding the various publishers' priorities and data to support the supposition that the test publishers do differ in their priorities as reflected in their test characteristics, are presented. Evaluation ratings available for 1,600 published scales appropriate for grades 1, 3, 5, and 6 were from 39 publishers and distributers. A…

Eleven papers on language testing deal with various psycholinguistic aspects ranging from the particular application of language aptitude tests to statistical methods of measurement and evaluation. Several chapters treat the difficulties involved in testing spoken language aptitude and attainment. Contributors to this volume include K. Brown, A.…