The engagement of teachers as raters to score constructed response items on assessments of student learning is widely claimed to be a valuable vehicle for professional development. This paper examines the evidence behind those claims from several sources, including research and reports over the past two decades, information from a dozen state…

Neil Dorans has made a career of advocating for the examinee. He continues to do so in his NCME career award address, providing a thought-provoking commentary on some current trends in educational measurement that could potentially affect the integrity of test scores. Concerns expressed in the address call attention to a conundrum that faces…

This article profiles the candidates for the 2012 NCME election of board of directors. This includes the candidates for the office of the vice president and positions representing testing organizations and members at-large.

As access and reliance on technology continue to increase, so does the use of computerized testing for admissions, licensure/certification, and accountability exams. Nonetheless, full computer-based test (CBT) implementation can be difficult due to limited resources. As a result, some testing programs offer both CBT and paper-based test (PBT)…

This article presents the author's observations on Neil Dorans's NCME Career Award Address: "The Contestant Perspective on Taking Tests: Emanations from the Statue within." He calls attention to some points that Dr. Dorans made in his address, and offers his thoughts in response.

In their critique of Kingston and Nash (2011), Briggs, Ruiz-Primo, Furtak, Shepard, and Yin (2012) make several major points. First, Kingston and Nash's conclusions about the state of research on the efficacy of formative assessment are similar to other researchers, "including some of the authors." Second, their research may be unique in that they…

Views on testing--its purpose and uses and how its data are analyzed--are related to one's perspective on test takers. Test takers can be viewed as learners, examinees, or contestants. I briefly discuss the perspective of test takers as learners. I maintain that much of psychometrics views test takers as examinees. I discuss test takers as a…

In a recent article published in "EM:IP," Kingston and Nash report on the results of a meta-analysis on the efficacy of formative assessment. They conclude that the average effect of formative assessment on student achievement is about 0.20 SD units. This would seem to dispel the myth that effects between 0.40 and 0.70 can be attributed to…

The purpose of this ITEMS module is to provide an introduction to subscores. First, examples of subscores from an operational test are provided. Then, a review of methods that can be used to examine if subscores have adequate psychometric quality is provided. It is demonstrated, using results from operational and simulated data, that subscores…

The objective was to examine the impact of different types of accommodations on performance in content tests such as mathematics. The meta-analysis included 14 U.S. studies that randomly assigned school-aged English language learners (ELLs) to test accommodation versus control conditions or used repeated measures in counter-balanced order.…

Higher education institutions are becoming increasingly accountable to stakeholders at many levels as the federal government, accrediting organizations, and the public place a stronger emphasis on student learning outcomes. Evidence of student learning that is comparable across institutions is of urgent demand. Various accountability initiatives…

An effect size of about 0.70 (or 0.40-0.70) is often claimed for the efficacy of formative assessment, but is not supported by the existing research base. More than 300 studies that appeared to address the efficacy of formative assessment in grades K-12 were reviewed. Many of the studies had severely flawed research designs yielding…

Items on test score scales located at and below the Proficient cut score define the content area knowledge and skills required to achieve proficiency. Alternately, examinees who perform at the Proficient level on a test can be expected to be able to demonstrate that they have mastered most of the knowledge and skills represented by the items at…

The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between Advanced Placement (AP) exam participation and enrollment in a 4-year postsecondary institution. A positive relationship was expected given that the primary purpose of offering AP courses is to allow students to engage in college-level academic work while in high school, and…

The study examined two approaches for equating subscores. They are (1) equating subscores using internal common items as the anchor to conduct the equating, and (2) equating subscores using equated and scaled total scores as the anchor to conduct the equating. Since equated total scores are comparable across the new and old forms, they can be used…