Standard for Educational and Psychological Testing

Introduction

In late 1999, the fourth version of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing was released by the three organizations responsible for this and previous versions, the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the American Psychological Association (APA), and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME).1 Previous versions had been released in 1966, 1974, and 1985 under the same or a very similar title. The stated purpose of the 1999 Standards is as follows:

Work on the fourth version of the Standards actually began in late 1993. The three sponsoring organizations assembled a joint committee of sixteen measurement experts in psychology and education and commissioned them with the task of revising and updating the 1985, or third, version of the Standards. The focus of this joint committee's task was not on a complete rewriting of the 1985 Standards, but rather on the making of changes in order to reflect recent advances in testing and the expanded use of tests into a number of new areas, such as the use of test results for setting public policy. Noteworthy among these advances or developments the joint committee needed to consider were: (1) increased emphases on the role of consequences of test use in the area of validity; (2) an increased degree of emphasis on performance assessment, and, in particular, on portfolio assessment;2 (3) the current role of generalizability theory when thinking about issues in the area of reliability; (4) the widespread use of item response theory (IRT) in the processing of examinee responses to test items; and (5) the increased use of the computer in the testing process and in the production of diagnostic feedback information for examinees. In addition, one other important development that was to greatly influence the preparation of the 1999 Standards had to do with the use of the 1985 Standards on a number of occasions in court litigation. The joint [Page 918]committee saw no reason to believe that this trend would not continue or even escalate in the first decade of the 2000s, and, hence, needed to be extremely careful in drafting the wording of the 1999 document.

Content of the Standards

The 1999 Standards contains fifteen chapters organized into three parts, as follows:

• Part I Test Construction, Evaluation, and Documentation
  • Chapter 1 Validity
  • Chapter 2 Reliability and Errors of Measurement
  • Chapter 3 Test Development and Revision
  • Chapter 4 Scales, Norms, and Score Comparability
  • Chapter 5 Test Administration, Scoring, and Reporting
  • Chapter 6 Supporting Documentation for Tests
• Part II Fairness in Testing
  • Chapter 7 Fairness in Testing and Test Use
  • Chapter 8 The Rights and Responsibilities of Test Takers
  • Chapter 9 Testing Individuals of Diverse Linguistic Backgrounds
  • Chapter 10 Testing Individuals with Disabilities
• Part III Testing Applications
  • Chapter 11 The Responsibilities of Test Users
  • Chapter 12 Psychological Testing and Assessment
  • Chapter 13 Educational Testing and Assessment
  • Chapter 14 Testing in Employment and Credentialling
  • Chapter 15 Testing in Programme Evaluation and Public Policy

Each of the fifteen chapters of the Standards begins with a background section, which contains an up-to-date discussion of the issues in testing related to the title of the particular chapter. The background section also provides an overview of the material to be addressed in detail in the individual standards of the chapter. Following the background section in each chapter are the individual standards for that chapter, and they are printed in boldface type. In many cases, a comment follows the standard, which helps by providing further clarification as to the intent of the standard. Following the standard chapters is an up-to-date glossary of terms used in the preceding text and standards. In total, the 1999 Standards comprises 194 pages (including preface, introduction, and index) and contains 264 individual test standards organized within the fifteen chapters.

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