The Abcs Of Educational Testing

Amplify your assessment literacy. Formative, data-driven, high-stakes—we all know the buzzwords surrounding educational testing. But we often shelve our understanding of these because they are overwhelmingly complex. Those who care about our schools and students—teachers, administrators, policymakers, parents, citizens—will discover how and why testing should be taken upon ourselves to advance. Using a nontechnical approach, this book offers fundamental knowledge to free you from testing fogginess—all framed around practical actions you can take to strengthen your assessment literacy. Inappropriate tests are leading to mistaken decisions, and this book provides everything you need to know to change that, including Reasons for tests Reliability/validity Fairness Test-building

Amplify your assessment literacy. Formative, data-driven, high-stakes—we all know the buzzwords surrounding educational testing. But often times we shelve our understanding of these terms because we think they are overwhelmingly complex. After all, isn’t that why we have "experts" crafting assessments? Those who care about our schools and students—teachers, administrators, policymakers, parents, citizens—will find The ABCs of Educational Testing the first accessible explanation of how and why having a fundamental understanding of educational testing is so important. Inappropriate tests are currently leading to harmful decision-making, and this book gives you everything you need to know to change that, including The purposes of tests The difference between and importance of reliability and validity How to build tests with fairness The importance of students’ affect Using a nontechnical and conversational approach, this book offers fundamental knowledge to free you from testing fogginess—all framed around practical actions you can take today to strengthen your assessment literacy for tomorrow.

Arguing that traditional, test-based evaluation has a negative effect on many students, this book describes new methods of assessing student performance.

And policy options -- Testing in transition -- Educational testing policy: The changing federal role -- Lessons from the past: A history of educational testing in the United States -- How other countries test -- Standardized tests in schools: A primer -- Performance assessment: Methods and characteristics -- Information technologies and testing: Past, present, future -- List of acronyms -- Contractor reports.

Using a jargon-free, reader-friendly conversational style and flexible format, the new edition continues to equip teachers-in-training with practical assessment strategies for today's challenges in measuring student progress. This revision includes practical, balanced, and integrated coverage of the many implications of the important and controversial No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. It thoughtfully applies traditional and innovative (e.g., performance and portfolio) assessment practices to help teachers prepare themselves and their students for optimal performance on high-stakes (and high-pressure!) tests. The text also helps teachers contribute to valid, day-day assessment of student progress and develop valid alternative assessments and accommodations appropriate for special education students now included in regular classrooms. Also includes PRAXIS test preparation scenarios and questions that address the use of objective and essay test items to measure higher-order thinking, and the creative and motivational use of performance and portfolio assessments. Text website offers streaming video of the Joint Committee of Testing Practices' The ABCs of School Testing.

How do you judge the quality of a school, a district, a teacher, a student? By the test scores, of course. Yet for all the talk, what educational tests can and can’t tell you, and how scores can be misunderstood and misused, remains a mystery to most. The complexities of testing are routinely ignored, either because they are unrecognized, or because they may be—well, complicated. Inspired by a popular Harvard course for students without an extensive mathematics background, Measuring Up demystifies educational testing—from MCAS to SAT to WAIS, with all the alphabet soup in between. Bringing statistical terms down to earth, Daniel Koretz takes readers through the most fundamental issues that arise in educational testing and shows how they apply to some of the most controversial issues in education today, from high-stakes testing to special education. He walks readers through everyday examples to show what tests do well, what their limits are, how easily tests and scores can be oversold or misunderstood, and how they can be used sensibly to help discover how much kids have learned.

This book provides a refined definition of standardized educational test fairness that can be utilized in multiple contexts to better understand the experiences and perspectives of diverse groups of test takers.

The authors of this book question the assumptions of the psychometric paradigm that underlie virtually all criterion-referenced and standardized tests used in North American schools. They make a compelling case for a new science of educational testing and assessment, one that shifts decision making from central administration to individual schools and communities. Harold Berlak argues that the concept of tests as scientific instruments validated by technical experts is anachronistic and self-contradictory. He makes a case for a contextual paradigm, an approach which assumes that consensus on educational goals and national testing programs is neither possible nor desireable. Assessment practices in a democratic society must acknowledge and affirm differences in values, beliefs, and material interests among individuals and groups over the purposes and practices of schooling.

Although originally designed as instruments to gauge students' progress, tests eventually were used to modify curricula, learning materials, pedagogy, and many practical features of schooling. Tests were employed to shape attitudes toward national issues such as employment, immigration, and defense. Worried about the enormous consequences that were at stake, advocates and opponents pitched their cases to educators, parents, journalists, and policymakers and also targeted special audiences. Testing proponents pleaded with military leaders, businesspeople, and scholastic publishers while their adversaries appealed to job seekers, college applicants, racial minorities, and anti-establishmentarians. This book illustrates how all of these parties showed interest; many became passionate; and some decisively influenced the course of American educational testing.