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Pages 36-49

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From page 36...
... 36 3 Assessment and Test Design Over the last 15 years, there has been a proliferation in the use ofassessment for accountability purposes at the national, state, andlocal district level. Test results have been used as indices in making decisions about individual students, such as advancement from one grade to the next or graduation from high school.
From page 37...
... ASSESSMENT AND TEST DESIGN 37 Popham (1999, 2000)
From page 38...
... 38 PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENTS FOR ADULT EDUCATION Assessments can provide valuable information to help students, teachers, school administrators, and policy makers make a variety of decisions. Although a given assessment is generally designed to address a particular purpose, in practice that assessment is often used for multiple purposes.
From page 39...
... ASSESSMENT AND TEST DESIGN 39 the GED, which students take to achieve the equivalent of a high school diploma. The purpose of the GED is to measure the skills associated with a high school education.
From page 40...
... 40 PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENTS FOR ADULT EDUCATION Included in the category of the constructed-response format are performance assessments. Performance assessments often seek to emulate the context or conditions in which the intended knowledge or skills would actually be applied, and they are characterized by the kind of response required from the test taker.
From page 41...
... ASSESSMENT AND TEST DESIGN 41 assessments offer a new approach to assessment, there are limits to what they can be expected to do. As Pearlman noted, "Our technical knowledge is not quite ready for some of the challenges presented by performance assessments." Developing Test Specifications Once the purpose of assessment and the scope of content and skill coverage have been determined, the test specifications can be developed.
From page 42...
... 42 PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENTS FOR ADULT EDUCATION Assembling Test Forms The final stage in test development is to assemble items into forms of the test or to identify an item pool for a computerized adaptive test. When the goal is to develop forms, it is important that each form meet the requirements of the test specifications.
From page 43...
... ASSESSMENT AND TEST DESIGN 43 The reliability of the scoring is an important issue. That is, it should not matter which scorer is rating a particular paper.
From page 44...
... 44 PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENTS FOR ADULT EDUCATION CONSIDERATIONS IN CHOOSING AMONG ITEM FORMATS There are benefits and issues associated with using either selectedresponse or constructed-response items in assessments. When selectedresponse format is used, more questions can be asked in a shorter period of time, scoring is faster and more straightforward, and it is easier to create comparable test forms.
From page 45...
... ASSESSMENT AND TEST DESIGN 45 sometimes correct) that constructed-response items, especially performance assessment tasks, are more authentic because the tasks resemble real-world situations -- they present real-world problems that require real-world problem solving.
From page 46...
... 46 PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENTS FOR ADULT EDUCATION world of performance assessment where we forgot to think about scoring because we were seduced by the really enjoyable task of designing what people will do. That happens to be the most sexy part of all of this and is by far the most dangerous." If the desire is to have scores that are comparable from one person to the next and from one testing occasion to the next, vigorous efforts need to be made to ensure consistent application of the scoring criteria across responses and across administrations.
From page 47...
... ASSESSMENT AND TEST DESIGN 47 and serve the purpose of the assessment. In his closing comments, Reckase stressed that the kind of information that can be gathered from a set of items is limited by the information per unit of time.
From page 48...
... 48 PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENTS FOR ADULT EDUCATION six-level scale that to some extent mirrors "progress" through elementary and secondary school systems in such subject areas as language and mathematics. Thissen commented that participants also considered different purposes of assessment at different times in the workshop.
From page 49...
... ASSESSMENT AND TEST DESIGN 49 If the purpose of adult education is the advancement of the student toward becoming an educated person (however that is defined) , the kind of assessment changes for each assessment purpose.

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