Integrating Timing Considerations to Improve Testing Practices synthesizes a wealth of theory and research on time issues in assessment into actionable advice for test development, administration, and scoring. One of the major advantages of computer-based testing is the capability to passively record test-taking metadata—including how examinees use time and how time affects testing outcomes. This has opened many questions for testing administrators. Is there a trade-off between speed and accuracy in test taking? What considerations should influence equitable decisions about extended-time accommodations? How can test administrators use timing data to balance the costs and resulting validity of tests administered at commercial testing centers? In this comprehensive volume, experts in the field discuss the impact of timing considerations, constraints, and policies on valid score interpretations; administrative accommodations, test construction, and examinees’ experiences and behaviors; and how to implement the findings into practice. These 12 chapters provide invaluable resources for testing professionals to better understand the inextricable links between effective time allocation and the purposes of high-stakes testing. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Integrating Timing Considerations to Improve Testing Practices synthesizes a wealth of theory and research on time issues in assessment into actionable advice for test development, administration, and scoring. One of the major advantages of computer-based testing is the capability to passively record test-taking metadata—including how examinees use time and how time affects testing outcomes. This has opened many questions for testing administrators. Is there a trade-off between speed and accuracy in test taking? What considerations should influence equitable decisions about extended-time accommodations? How can test administrators use timing data to balance the costs and resulting validity of tests administered at commercial testing centers? In this comprehensive volume, experts in the field discuss the impact of timing considerations, constraints, and policies on valid score interpretations; administrative accommodations, test construction, and examinees’ experiences and behaviors; and how to implement the findings into practice. These 12 chapters provide invaluable resources for testing professionals to better understand the inextricable links between effective time allocation and the purposes of high-stakes testing.

This book examines scholarship, best practice methodologies, and examples of policy and practice from various professional fields in education and psychology to illuminate the elevated emphasis on test fairness in the 2014 Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. Together, the chapters provide a survey of critical and current issues with a view to broadening and contextualizing the fairness guidelines for different types of tests, test takers, and testing contexts. Researchers and practitioners from school psychology, clinical/counseling psychology, industrial/organizational psychology, and education will find the content useful in thinking more acutely about fairness in testing in their work. The book also has chapters that address implications for policy makers, and, in some cases, the public. These discussions are offered as a starting point for future scholarship on the theoretical, empirical, and applied aspects of fairness in testing particularly given the ever-increasing importance of addressing equity in testing.

The comprehensive source on attorney licensing and how to reform it. In Shaping the Bar, Joan Howarth describes how the twin gatekeepers of the legal profession—law schools and licensers—are failing the public. Attorney licensing should be laser-focused on readiness to practice law with the minimum competence of a new attorney. According to Howarth, requirements today are both too difficult and too easy. Amid the crisis in unmet legal services, record numbers of law school graduates—disproportionately people of color—are failing bar exams that are not meaningful tests of competence to practice. At the same time, after seven years of higher education, hundreds of thousands of dollars of law school debt, two months of cramming legal rules, and success on a bar exam, a candidate can be licensed to practice law without ever having been in a law office or even seen a lawyer with a client. Howarth makes the case that the licensing rituals familiar to generations of lawyers—unfocused law degrees and obsolete bar exams—are protecting members of the profession more than the public. Beyond explaining the failures of the current system, this book presents the latest research on competent lawyering and examples of better approaches. This book presents the path forward by means of licensing changes to protect the public while building an inclusive, diverse, competent, ethical profession. Thoughtful and engaging, Shaping the Bar is both an authoritative account of attorney licensing and a pragmatic handbook for overdue equitable reform of a powerful profession.

The volume represents presentations given at the 86th annual meeting of the Psychometric Society, held virtually on July 19–23, 2021. About 500 individuals contributed paper presentations, symposiums, poster presentations, pre-conference workshops, keynote presentations, and invited presentations. Since the 77th meeting, Springer has published the conference proceedings volume from this annual meeting to allow presenters to share their work and ideas with the wider research community, while still undergoing a thorough review process. This proceedings covers a diverse set of psychometric topics, including item response theory, Bayesian models, reliability, longitudinal measures, and cognitive diagnostic models.

Maximizing student outcomes in education presents a significant challenge, as traditional assessment methods often fall short in providing actionable insights for improvement. Perspectives on Learning Analytics for Maximizing Student Outcomes addresses this challenge by offering a comprehensive solution. Edited by esteemed scholars Gürhan Durak and Serkan Çankaya, this book provides innovative knowledge and practical experiences on emerging technologies and processes in learning analytics. It covers topics such as data collection, visualization, predictive analytics, and ethical considerations, serving as a guide for academic scholars, technology enthusiasts, and educational institutions. This book empowers professionals and researchers to leverage learning analytics effectively, enabling data-informed decision-making, improved teaching practices, and tailored educational programs. By presenting best practices and future directions, it equips readers with the necessary tools to optimize learning environments and drive student success. With a focus on the transformative potential of learning analytics, this book propels education toward a more efficient and effective system that prioritizes student outcomes.

Advancing Natural Language Processing in Educational Assessment examines the use of natural language technology in educational testing, measurement, and assessment. Recent developments in natural language processing (NLP) have enabled large-scale educational applications, though scholars and professionals may lack a shared understanding of the strengths and limitations of NLP in assessment as well as the challenges that testing organizations face in implementation. This first-of-its-kind book provides evidence-based practices for the use of NLP-based approaches to automated text and speech scoring, language proficiency assessment, technology-assisted item generation, gamification, learner feedback, and beyond. Spanning historical context, validity and fairness issues, emerging technologies, and implications for feedback and personalization, these chapters represent the most robust treatment yet about NLP for education measurement researchers, psychometricians, testing professionals, and policymakers. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.