Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice

The alignment of test items to content standards is critical to the validity of decisions made from standards-based tests. Generally, alignment is determined based on judgments made by a panel of content experts with either ratings averaged or via a consensus reached through discussion. When the pool of items to be reviewed is large, or the content-matter experts are broadly distributed geographically, panel methods present significant challenges. This article illustrates the use of an online methodology for gauging item alignment that does not require that raters convene in person, reduces the overall cost of the study, increases time flexibility, and offers an efficient means for reviewing large item banks. Latent trait methods are applied to the data to control for between-rater severity, evaluate intrarater consistency, and provide item-level diagnostic statistics. Use of this methodology is illustrated with a large pool (1,345) of interim-formative mathematics test items. Implications for the field and limitations of this approach are discussed.

The use of alternative assessments has led many researchers to reexamine traditional views of test qualities, especially ualidity. Because alternative assessments generally aim at measuring complex constructs and employ rich assessment tasks, it becomes more difficult to demonstrate (a) the validity of the inferences we make and (b) that these inferences extrapolate to target domains beyond the assessment itself. An approach to addressing these issues from the perspective of language testing is described. If is then argued that in both language testing and educational assessment we must consider the roles of both language and content knowledge, and that our approach to the design and development of performance assessments must be both construct-based and task-based.

Grade inflation threatens the integrity of college grades as indicators of academic achievement. In this study, we contribute to the literature on grade inflation by providing the first estimate of the size of grade increases at the student level between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s. By controlling for student characteristics and course-taking patterns, we are able to eliminate alternative explanations for grade increases. Our results suggest that grade inflation has occurred across decades, at a small yet non-negligible rate. Suggestions for future research are discussed.

Scores on state standards-based assessments are readily available and may be an appropriate alternative to traditional placement tests for assigning or accepting students into particular courses. Many community colleges do not require test scores for admissions purposes but do require some kind of placement scores for first-year English and math courses. In this study, we examine the efficacy of using the reading and math portions of the Kansas State Assessment (KSA) for predicting the success of high school students taking College Algebra and College English I at a Kansas community college. Results showed that in this sample KSA scores predicted as well or better than more traditional placement tests and with no extra cost to the institution.

The 1990 Standards for Teacher Competence in Educational Assessment of Students (AFT, NCME, & NEA, 1990) made a documentable contribution to the field. However, the Standards have become a bit dated, most notably in two ways: (1) the Standards do not consider current conceptions of formative assessment knowledge and skills, and (2) the Standards do not consider teacher knowledge and skills required to successfully work in the current accountability and “standards-based reform” context. This article briefly reviews the 1990 Standards and their influence, describes some other lists of assessment knowledge and skills that might be considered in updating them, and then proposes educational assessment knowledge and skills for teachers that reflect current teacher assessment needs. This set of competencies should help focus the work of teachers, teacher supervisors, professional developers, teacher educators, and others responsible for teachers’ assessment knowledge and skills.