Establishing a cut score is a crucial aspect of the test development process since the selected cut score has the potential to impact students' performance outcomes and shape instructional strategies within the classroom. Therefore, it is vital for those involved in test development to set a cut score that is both fair and justifiable. This cut…

Validation research for educational achievement tests is often limited to an examination of intended test score interpretations. This article calls for an expansion of validation research in three dimensions. First, validation must attend to actual test use and its consequences, not just score meaning. Second, validation must attend to unintended…

The article discusses the methodological approach to the technology of the educational experiment performance, the ways of the research data processing by means of research methods and methods of mathematical statistics. The article shows the integrated use of some effective approaches to the training of the students majoring in…

Educational achievement is a very important issue for parents, teachers, and the government. An accurate measurement plays a very important role in evaluating achievement fairly, and, therefore, analysis methods have been developed considerably in recent years. Education based on long-time learning processes forms a fruitful base for item tests,…

High-stakes testing is not a new phenomenon in education. It has become part of the education system in many countries. These tests affect the school systems, teachers, students, politicians and parents, whether that is in a positive or negative sense. High-stakes testing is associated with concepts such as a school's accountability, funding and…

In this keynote address, the author shares his reflections on politics, economics, and testing. He focuses on assessment and accountability and begins with some data from large scale written educational testing, "circa 1840". The author argues that people's penchant for accountability and their appetite for standardized testing are, in…

There are many kinds of classroom assessment--from informal observation of students to more formal exams and standardized tests. Two categories have been identified--formative assessments and summative assessments. Formative assessments are used by teachers to provide feedback to students and to guide improvement of instruction. For example, if a…

Based on the results of a generalizability study of measures of teacher knowledge for teaching mathematics developed at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing at the University of California, Los Angeles, this article provides evidence that teachers are better at drawing reasonable inferences about student…

In this hermeneutic phenomenological inquiry I explore the lived experience of public school teachers teaching amidst the federal law entitled No Child Left Behind. My research question wonders, "What is the lived experience of teaching under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB)?" My exploration relies heavily upon the work of Ted…

What can teachers do in their classrooms to help students prepare for a high-stakes, standardized, multiple-choice reading test without sacrificing what they know to be best practice? Decreasing class sizes or other solutions that require substantial changes in school finance are not usually realistic options. This article outlines five…

Now that standardized tests are a fact of life in every school and classroom, here's a book that explains how to use sample questions from high-stakes tests as the basis for constructing engaging lessons and meaningful learning experiences. Using samples from language arts, science, social studies, and math, Karen Tankersley familiarizes you with…

The problem examined in this study: Does the majority of teachers use rigorous teaching and testing practices? The purpose of this qualitative exploratory case study was to explore the classroom techniques of six effective teachers who use rigorous teaching and testing practices. The hypothesis for this study is that the examination of the…

Students in an introductory psychology course took a quiz a week over each textbook chapter, followed by a cumulative final exam. Students missing a quiz in class could make up a quiz at any time during the semester, and answers to quiz items were available to students prior to the cumulative final exam. The cumulative final exam consisted of half…

Patriot High School (PHS) adopted a remediation strategy to help its 10th-grade students at risk of failing the Math portion of MCAS, the state's end of year competency exam. The centerpiece of that strategy was a computer-based instructional (CBI) course. PHS used a commercially available CBI product to align the course content with the…

In many school districts, the pressure to raise test scores has created overnight celebrity status for formative assessment. Its powers to raise student achievement have been touted, however, without attending to the research on which these claims were based. Sociocultural learning theory provides theoretical grounding for understanding how…