Advancing Human Assessment: The Methodological, Psychological and Policy Contributions of ETS

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. This book describes the extensive contributions made toward the advancement of human assessment by scientists from one of the world’s leading research institutions, Educational Testing Service. The book’s four major sections detail research and development in measurement and statistics, education policy analysis and evaluation, scientific psychology, and validity. Many of the developments presented have become de-facto standards in educational and psychological measurement, including in item response theory (IRT), linking and equating, differential item functioning (DIF), and educational surveys like the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the Programme of international Student Assessment (PISA), the Progress of International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). In addition to its comprehensive coverage of contributions to the theory and methodology of educational and psychological measurement and statistics, the book gives significant attention to ETS work in cognitive, personality, developmental, and social psychology, and to education policy analysis and program evaluation. The chapter authors are long-standing experts who provide broad coverage and thoughtful insights that build upon decades of experience in research and best practices for measurement, evaluation, scientific psychology, and education policy analysis. Opening with a chapter on the genesis of ETS and closing with a synthesis of the enormously diverse set of contributions made over its 70-year history, the book is a useful resource for all interested in the improvement of human assessment.

1. What Does It Mean to Be a Nonprofit Educational Measurement Organization in the 21st Century?- PART 1: ETS Contributions to Developing Analytic Tools for Educational Measurement -- 2. A Review of Classical Item Analysis Developments and Applications -- 3. Psychometric Contributions: Focus on Test Scores -- 4. Contributions to Score Linking Theory and Practice -- 5. Item Response Theory -- 6. Research on Statistics -- 7. Contributions to the Quantitative Assessment of Item, Test, and Score Fairness -- PART 2: ETS Contributions to Education Policy and Evaluation -- 8. Large-Scale Group-Score Assessment -- 9. Large-Scale Assessments of Adult Literacy -- 10. Modeling Change in Large-Scale Longitudinal Studies of Educational Growth: Four Decades of Contributions to the Assessment of Educational Growth.- 11. Evaluating Educational Programs -- 12. Contributions to Education Policy Research -- PART III: ETS Contributions to Research in Scientific Psychology -- 13. Research on Cognitive, Personality, and Social Psychology: I -- 14. Research on Cognitive, Personality, and Social Psychology: II -- 15. Research on Developmental Psychology -- PART IV: ETS Contributions to Validity -- 16. Research on Validity Theory and Practice at ETS -- 17. Understanding the Impact of Special Preparation for Admissions Tests -- 18. A Historical Survey of Research Regarding Constructed-Response Formats -- 19. Advancing Human Assessment: A Synthesis Over Seven Decades.