Carol Anne Dwyer

Cut scores and testing: Statistics, judgment, truth, and error.

The uses and abuses of cut scores (also called cut points, or standards) are examined, illustrating their typical applications and ubiquity. The article demonstrates that cut scores (a) always entail judgment; (b) inherently result in misclassification; (c) impose an artificial dichotomy on an essentially continuous distribution of knowledge, skill or ability; and that (d) no true cut scores exist. Issues involved in minimizing abuses ofcut scores are discussed.

Psychometrics of Praxis III: Classroom Performance Assessments.

The article describes the Praxis III assessment, an observation-based system for assessing the skills of beginning teachers that emphasizes teacher decision-making and the importance of student, school, and curricular context. The article also describes the principles and process of the assessments design and construction, including the underlying conception of teaching, how this construct was operationalized, and how assessment criteria were developed. Additional issues in teacher performance assessments, including whether such assessments should reflect current practice or lead it, the balance between assessment of practical and theoretical knowledge, and the role of assessor judgment, are discussed.

Criteria for Performance-Based Teacher Assessments: Validity, Standards, and Issues.

ConclusionValidity theory, together with currently available and emerging standards for performance assessments, provides guidance for the developers of high-stakes performance assessments. It is imperative, however, that important aspects of validity and standards for quality and fairness of performance assessments be built into such assessments from their very inception. Specifying the target performance in terms legitimate to all of the assessment participants and creating an explicit methodology for integrating diverse points of view provide the foundation for defensible assessments. It is only through painstaking analyses and field work, however, that many validity-related aspects of the assessments can be satisfactorily resolved. Perhaps, with the passage of time, a cycle can be established in which these experiences from the field can inform further development of standards of performance assessment, which can then be used to raise the standard of assessment development practice. Only then can the full promise of modern validity theory be fulfilled.

Testing and Affirmative Action: Reflections in a Time of Turmoil

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