The use of assessment results to inform school accountability relies on the assumption that the test design appropriately represents the content and cognitive emphasis reflected in the state's standards. Since the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act and the certification of accountability assessments through federal peer review practices,…

Assessment in mathematics is assumed to provide credible and important information about what students know and can do. In this paper we focus on large scale tests and question whether mathematics assessment is essentially gender neutral. We consider aspects of test validity and discuss issues of terminology related to gender and mathematics. In…

Many parents are unhappy with the way testing has altered, expanded and taken hold in primary schools in recent years. Some parents chose to express their objections to primary Standard Assessment Tests (SATs) in particular, through taking part in collective strike action. While research into testing abounds, the opinions of parents and their role…

Expanding the scope of previous undergraduate research assessment tools, the "Entering Research" Learning Assessment (ERLA) measures undergraduate and graduate research trainee learning gains in the seven areas of trainee development in the evidence-based "Entering Research" conceptual framework: Research Comprehension and…

The main purpose of this quantitative-qualitative content analysis study was to compare IELTS and TOEFL listening and reading tests based on the representation of the learning objectives of Revised Bloom's taxonomy. To this end, 12 Academic IELTS listening and reading tests and 12 TOEFL iBT listening and reading tests were analyzed qualitatively…

Since 2014 the College Board has continued to revise and develop the Advanced Placement European, United States, and World History examinations. It keeps getting in trouble. Many critics have excoriated the College Board for teaching history grossly politicized to the left--history without the history of freedom, history that teaches hatred of…

Since 1973, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has gathered information about student achievement in mathematics. The NAEP assessment in mathematics has two components that differ in purpose. One assessment measures long-term trends in achievement among 9-, 13-, and 17-year-old students by using the same basic design each time.…

This three-paper dissertation explores item cluster-based assessments, first in general as it relates to modeling, and then, specific issues surrounding a particular item cluster-based assessment designed. There should be a reasonable analogy between the structure of a psychometric model and the cognitive theory that the assessment is based upon.…

This report discusses frameworks and assessment development approaches to consider fairness, opportunity to learn, and consequences of test use in the design and use of assessments administered to diverse populations. Examples include the integrated design and appraisal framework and the sociocognitively based evidence-centered design approach.…

A common suggestion made in the psychometric literature for fixed-length classification tests is that one should design tests so that they have maximum information at the cut score. Designing tests in this way is believed to maximize the classification accuracy and consistency of the assessment. This article uses simulated examples to illustrate…

The history and evolution of science assessment remains poorly known, especially in the context of the exam question contents. Here we analyze the Finnish matriculation examination in biology from the 1920s to 1960s to understand how the exam has evolved in both its knowledge content and educational form. Each question was classified according to…

Computer-based assessment or e-assessment system is an e-learning system where information communication technology is utilized for examination activity, grading, and recording of responses of the examinees. It includes the entire assessment process from the examinees, teachers, institutions, examination agencies, and the public. E-assessment…

Justification of testing practice involves moving from one state of knowledge about the test to another. Theories of test validity can (a) focus on the beginning of the process, (b) focus on the end, or (c) encompass the entire process. Analyses of four case studies test and illustrate three claims: (a) restrictions on validity entail a supplement…

General chemistry courses are often the foundation for the study of other science disciplines and upper-level chemistry concepts. Students who take introductory chemistry courses are more often from health and science-related fields than chemistry. As such, the content taught and assessed in general chemistry courses is envisioned as building…

Purpose: This study aims to reveal effects of content balancing and item selection method on ability estimation in computerized adaptive tests by comparing Fisher's maximum information (FMI) and likelihood weighted information (LWI) methods. Research Methods: Four groups of examinees (250, 500, 750, 1000) and a bank of 500 items with 10 different…