Fair Testing

National standards for educational measurement, assessment, and evaluation leave little room for some practices. While there are several really important standards that faculty should be aware of, perhaps the most important is this: Important educational decisions should not be made on the basis of a single test score. Faculty would never think of having a course where the only evaluation method in the course was a single test. Why are progression or exit tests used in this way, then?

Faculty need look no further than the national debate around the No Child Left Behind Act. While billed as an accountability tool, clearly there are still children being left behind. Part of NCLB has been the creation and promotion of testing programs. Along with the advent of such testing programs has come inappropriate uses of tests for the purposes of promotion, tracking, and graduation. Because every test score contains within it an error component, no one test score should be used to make important educational decisions.

Short Bibliography

American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, & National Council on Measurement in Education. (1999). Standards for educational and psychological testing. Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.

Applied Research Center. (1999). No exit? Testing, tracking, and students of color in U.S. Public Schools. Applied Research Center. Retrieved May 8, 2008, from http://www.arc.org/pdf/262bpdf.pdf.

Heubert, J.P., & Hauser, R.M. (Eds.). (1999). High stakes: Testing for tracking, promotion, and graduation. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Retrieved May 8, 2008, from the National Academy Press Web site: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309062802

Joint Committee on Testing Practices. (2004). Code of fair testing practices in education. Retrieved May 8, 2008, from the American Psychological Association Web site: http://www.apa.org/science/FinalCode.pdf

Spurlock, D., Jr. (2006). Do no harm: Progression policies and high-stakes testing in nursing education. Journal of Nursing Education, 45, 297-302.