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A Valedictory Reflections on 60 Years in Educational Testing (1995) / Chapter Skim
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Wrestling with Measurement Error
Pages 8-10

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 8...
... A request for proposal for drawing a sample of a certain kind, or writing a test to certain specifications, has to be issued by the project before the technical panel advising on the assessment plan has begun to digest the information from last year's trial run. In fact, one problem that our report on CLAS highlighted was the substantial variation across the judges scoring 1993 writing exercises; this did not jibe with the program's public claims of accurate scoring.
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From page 9...
... The state superintendent ruled that CLAS would not release individual scores except in schools in which their reliability had been verified. The legislature authorized a 1995 budget for CL-AS, with changes designed to quiet major public objections of a nontechnical character.
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From page 10...
... ~ go into technical detail here, because ~ want you tO understand the layers-within-layers nature of these problems, and the near-helplessness of experts working in snatches of time as consultants or outside observers. The main CLAS report in, say, reading was a string of percentages corresponding to six score levels.
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Key Terms

  • scoring plans
  • standard errors
  • golden poppy
  • legislature authorized
  • professional activities

  • clas highlighted
  • story goes
  • state superintendent
  • supposedly expert
  • reflective colleagues

  • poor assessment
  • execution unsatisfactory
  • pupil responses
  • main clas
  • changes designed

  • lost sight
  • quiet major
  • acceptable reliability
  • clas report
  • true score

  • nontechnical character
  • superintendent ruled
  • correlated error
  • writing exercises
  • substantial variation

  • six score
  • public objections
  • represent competence
  • handy textbook
  • clas scores


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