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Achievement Tests
Achievement tests are used to assess the current knowledge and skills of the person being examined. Achievement tests include those administered to students in elementary or secondary schools and those administered to candidates for certification or licensure in a professional field. In elementary and secondary schools, content areas assessed by achievement tests include reading, language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies. Licensure and certification examinations include test items that assess the knowledge, skills, and abilities that are required for professional practice. For example, a teacher licensure examination might include items on child development, curriculum, instructional methods, and assessment.
This entry describes achievement tests of various types and how they are developed, describes their uses, and provides some guidelines for selection of specific tests.
Test Formats
The most common item format used in achievement tests is multiple choice. Other item formats used in achievement tests are constructed-response items that require examinees to write a short response and extended-response items that require lengthier responses, such as essays. Also, the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards incorporates a portfolio as one component of its examination used to certify teachers as being “accomplished.”
A majority of achievement tests are group administered. Some achievement tests, however, are individually administered. An example is the Woodcock Johnson-III Tests of Achievement, which assesses examinees' knowledge in language and mathematics skills. Also, some achievement tests are administered by computer. The Measures of Academic Progress produced by the Northwest Evaluation Association is a computer-adaptive test of reading, mathematics, and science that is used by school districts throughout the United States. An example of an Internet-based assessment is the South Carolina Arts Assessment Program in the visual and performing arts, which is administered to fourth-grade students.
Typically licensure and certification tests are national in focus, whereas, most achievement tests in primary and secondary schools are administered at the school district or state level. However, a nationwide achievement test administered in the United States is the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which administers tests in such areas as reading, writing, mathematics, and science, to a national sample of students in Grades 4, 8, and 12. An example of an achievement test administered internationally is the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, a literacy test administered in thrity-five countries or regions.
Types of Scores
Interpretations of scores from achievement tests are typically norm referenced or criterion referenced. Norm-referenced scores allow the comparison of a local examinee's performance to a group of peers from across the nation. To achieve this, during test development, a test company recruits a group of examinees from across the nation to take the newly developed achievement test. These examinees are referred to as a norm group. The achievement tests are administered and scored, and the scores of the members of the norm group are converted to percentiles. A percentile rank indicates the percentage of the norm-group members scoring at or below a test score. The percentile scale ranges from 1 to 99, with the fiftieth percentile being considered average.
When a local examinee takes the test, his or her test score is compared to the scores of the norm group to determine the percentage of the norm group who scored at or below the local examinee's score. A local examinee scoring at, for example, the sixteenth percentile scored below average as compared to the norm group; whereas a local examinee scoring at the eighty-fifth percentile scored well above average. Given that a local examinee's performance is being compared to members of a norm group, if the percentile ranks are to be meaningful, then the norm group should be similar to local examinees in terms of demographics.
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