Meeting Professional Testing Standards
Developing valid, reliable, and fair assessments is a complex multi-step task. A complete and defensible assessment development process documents how important assessment issues are defined and addressed during the assessment development cycle. Some of these issues include:
- Establishing clear content blueprints for all assessments,
- Validating how final test content is aligned with targeted learning standards,
- Developing high-quality multiple-choice and constructed-response items,
- Conducting item reviews with content and bias experts,
- Administering pilot test forms, and
- Providing clear psychometric evidence to support the use of the assessments.
Individual school districts lack the resources, the expertise, and the experience to create state-of-the-art assessments that will meet professional testing standards and withstand challenges to their use as part of a teacher evaluation system.