Editing Standardized test (section)

==Standards==
The considerations of [[Validity (logic)|validity]] and [[Reliability (statistics)|reliability]] typically are viewed as essential elements for determining the quality of any standardized test. However, professional and practitioner associations frequently have placed these concerns within broader contexts when developing [[Standards organization|standards]] and making overall judgments about the quality of any standardized test as a whole within a given context.

===Evaluation standards===
{{anchor|Testing standards}}

In the field of [[psychometrics]], the ''[[Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing]]''<ref>{{cite web |title=The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing |url=http://www.apa.org/science/standards.html#overview |access-date=2 May 2015 |work=www.apa.org}}</ref> place standards about validity and reliability, along with [[Measurement#Difficulties|errors of measurement]] and issues related to the [[special education#Accommodations|accommodation]] of individuals with [[Disability|disabilities]].  The third and final major topic covers standards related to testing applications, [[Professional certification|credentialing]], plus testing in [[program evaluation]] and [[Standardized testing and public policy|public policy]].

In the field of [[evaluation]], and in particular [[educational evaluation]], the [[Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wmich.edu/evalctr/jc/|title=Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation|access-date=2 May 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091015044732/http://www.wmich.edu/evalctr/jc/|archive-date=15 October 2009}}</ref> has published three sets of standards for evaluations. ''The Personnel Evaluation Standards''<ref>Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation. (1988). ''[http://www.wmich.edu/evalctr/jc/PERSTNDS-SUM.htm The Personnel Evaluation Standards: How to Assess Systems for Evaluating Educators.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051212001638/http://www.wmich.edu/evalctr/jc/PERSTNDS-SUM.htm |date=2005-12-12 }}'' Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.</ref> was published in 1988, ''The Program Evaluation Standards'' (2nd edition)<ref>Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation. (1994). ''[http://www.wmich.edu/evalctr/jc/PGMSTNDS-SUM.htm The Program Evaluation Standards, 2nd Edition.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060222025348/http://www.wmich.edu/evalctr/jc/PGMSTNDS-SUM.htm |date=2006-02-22 }}'' Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.</ref> was published in 1994, and ''The Student Evaluation Standards''<ref>Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation. (2003).  ''[http://www.wmich.edu/evalctr/jc/briefing/ses/ The Student Evaluation Standards: How to Improve Evaluations of Students.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060524144621/http://www.wmich.edu/evalctr/jc/briefing/ses/ |date=2006-05-24 }}'' Newbury Park, CA: Corwin Press.</ref> was published in 2003.

Each publication presents a set of standards for use in a variety of educational settings. The standards provide guidelines for designing, implementing, assessing, and improving the identified form of evaluation. Each of the standards has been placed in one of four fundamental categories to promote educational evaluations that are proper, useful, feasible, and accurate.  In these sets of standards, validity and reliability considerations are covered under the accuracy topic. The tests are meant to provide sound, accurate, and credible information about learning and performance; however, most academic tests (standardized or not) offer narrow information of achievement.  Relying on a narrow, academic-focused view achievement does not fully represent a person's potential for success (e.g., by not testing [[interpersonal skills]] or [[soft skills]]).<ref name="auto">{{Cite journal|last1=Morgan|first1=Hani|year=2016|title=Relying on High-Stakes Standardized Tests to Evaluate Schools and Teachers: A Bad Idea|journal=The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas|volume=89|issue=2|pages=67–72|doi=10.1080/00098655.2016.1156628|s2cid=148015644}}</ref>

=== Statistical validity ===
[[File:US Navy 030313-N-3228G-002 Nearly 250 candidates for E-5 mark their answer sheets while taking the March 2003 advancement exam at the Club Pearl Complex.jpg|thumb|upright|Enlisted members of the military take a paper-based, multiple-choice standardized test, in the hope of earning a promotion. All of them answer the same questions and get graded the same way.|alt=Young adults wearing light blue uniforms sit at tables with test papers and pencils]]One of the main advantages of larger-scale standardized testing is that the results can be empirically documented; therefore, the test scores can be shown to have a relative degree of [[Validity (statistics)|validity]] and [[Reliability (statistics)|reliability]], as well as results which are generalizable and replicable.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Kuncel|first1=N. R.|last2=Hezlett|first2=S. A.|year=2007|title=ASSESSMENT: Standardized Tests Predict Graduate Students' Success|journal=Science|volume=315|issue=5815|pages=1080–81|doi=10.1126/science.1136618|pmid=17322046|s2cid=143260128}}</ref> This is often contrasted with grades on a school transcript, which are assigned by individual teachers.  When looking at individually assigned grades, it may be difficult to account for differences in educational culture across schools, the difficulty of a given teacher's assignments, differences in teaching style, the pressure for [[grade inflation]], and other techniques and biases that affect grading.

Another advantage is aggregation. A well-designed standardized test provides an assessment of an individual's mastery of a domain of knowledge or skill which at some level of aggregation will provide useful information. That is, while individual assessments may not be accurate enough for practical purposes, the mean scores of classes, schools, branches of a company, or other groups may well provide useful information because of the reduction of error accomplished by increasing the sample size.