Validating High-Stakes Testing Programs

Cronbach made the point that for validity arguments to be convincing to diverse stakeholders, they need to be based on assumptions that are credible to these stakeholders. The interpretations and uses of high-stakes test scores rely on a number of policy assumptions about what should be taught in schools, and more specifically, about the content standards and performance standards that should be applied to students and schools. For example, a high-school graduation test can be developed as a measure of readiness for the world of work, for college, or for citizenship and the activities of daily life. The assumptions built into the assessment need to be subjected to scrutiny and criticism if a strong case is to be made for the validity of the proposed interpretation and use.     

Construct-Irrelevant Variance in High-Stakes Testing

There are many threats to validity in high-stakes achievement testing. One major threat is construct-irrelevant variance (CIV). This article defines CIV in the context of the contemporary, unitary view of validity and presents logical arguments, hypotheses, and documentation for a variety of CIV sources that commonly threaten interpretations of test scores. A more thorough study of CIV is recommended.     

Historical High-Stakes Policies Relating to Unintended Consequences of High-Stakes Testing

Current high-stakes, standardized testing policy is discussed through historical analogy with Chairman Mao's famine in China and the Maginot Line in France. Both of these national, high-stakes policies resulted in catastrophic failure. If the accountability movement's goals are to improve our ability to compete economically with other nations, we may also be heading for failure. Assessment should be aligned with the skills and knowledge crucial to our success in the future such as collaboration, experimentation, and comfort with ambiguity. Funds currently allocated to standardized testing should be reallocated to the development of measures for such skills and knowledge.     

More Unintended Consequences of High-Stakes Testing

This article explores the basis of negative sentiments toward and current critiques of high-stakes student testing from within the education profession. To promote some balance for current policy debates, evidence for 10 unintended, unrecognized, or unarticulated positive consequences is provided. The article concludes with an examination of the relationship between high-stakes testing and accountability systems.     

Standardized Testing + High-Stakes Decisions = Educational Inequity

Changes in assessment policy have increased standardized testing at provincial, national, and international levels, introduced testing at more grade levels, increased the reporting of test results, and attached more significance to those results. Advocates claim that testing will result in greater accountability in education. The research demonstrates that standardized testing has a negative impact on students, perpetuating and intensifying educational inequity through test bias and the misuse of test scores. Test results are increasingly being used to analyse policy, program, school, and teacher success, and they are being inappropriately used as "educational gatekeepers" to make important decisions about students, teachers, schools, and school systems. This paper focuses on how standardized testing is becoming the mechanism that facilitates many questionable education practices that contribute to educational inequity.     

High-Stakes Testing Accommodations: Validity Versus Disabled Rights

Traditionally, measurement specialists have provided testing accommodations for examinees with physical disabilities such as blindness or impaired mobility. Following passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, advocates for the disabled have argued that federal law also requires testing accommodations for mental disabilities such as dyslexia and other learning disabilities. Such requested accommodations have included readers, calculators, word processors, and additional time. But these accommodations may affect test validity, requiring measurement specialists to balance the social goal of integrating the disabled against the measurement goal of accurate test score interpretation. Although the courts have provided some guidance regarding testing accommodation requirements for the disabled, they have not yet addressed the issue of where to draw the line on accommodations for mental disabilities. This article explores the measurement problems associated with granting accommodations for mental disabilities, uses existing case law to construct a legal framework for considering such accommodations, arid discusses the advantages and-disadvantages of alternative strategies for handling testing accommodation requests.     

Assessing Achievement Versus High-Stakes Testing: A Crucial Contrast

Assessing achievement for samples of students can produce useful information about what students know and can do and about performance changes over time. In contrast, high-stakes testing of all students overemphasizes limited aspects of education at the expense of arguably more important goals. High-stakes tests can entail harmful direct effects for some individuals and harmful side effects for others. Illustrations are cited. Student engagement in school appears to be a key element of effective schooling. Adopting measures of student engagement along with measures of achievement would provide a balance between two important goals of education.     

Comment on Cizek's "More Unintended Consequences of High-Stakes Testing"

This discussion provides a response to Gregory Cizek's "More Unintended Consequences of High-Stakes Testing." The current policy debate is characterized by extreme positions both for and against testing, and Cizek's article balances positive consequences against antitesting critics. However, there is no evidence that high-stakes testing per se has substantial positive consequences–although there is optimism that aligned educational systems, in which testing is a component, may lead to higher levels of student attainment.     

美国高利害测验项目的公平追求及其悖反

美国高利害测验项目在近年来得到了很大的发展,它的理想目标在于确保每个美国学生都能接受高质量的教育,然而其实施结果却出现了悖反,加剧了教育不公平。导致此结果的原因在于它忽视了三个方面的不平等,必须关注这些不平等,才有望实现真正的教育公平与质量。     

The Potential Impacts of Upcoming High-Stakes Testing on the Teaching of Science in Elementary Classrooms

In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education in the United States issued a report called A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. This report and other policy initiatives such as the No Child Left Behind Legislation recommended that the individual states institute assessments to hold schools accountable. This research explored the potential impact of impending standardised testing on teaching science in elementary schools in one school district in Florida. We explored the teachers' concerns about the upcoming high-stakes tests in science, possible impact on their curriculum and what changes, if any, will be made in the approach to science teaching and learning in their classrooms. As the teachers look toward the implementation of high-stakes testing in science, they have recognised the need to teach science. This recognition is not borne out of the importance of science learning for elementary school children, but rather out of fear of failure and the effects of tangible rewards or punishments that accompany high-stakes testing. In anticipation, the teachers are preparing to align their teaching to the science standards while aggressively searching for test preparatory materials. Schools are also involved in professional development and structural changes to facilitate teaching of science.     

Outlier Detection in Near Infra-Red Spectra with Self-Organizing Map

A new method to detect multiple outliers in multivariate data is proposed. It is a combination of minimum subsets, resampling and self-organizing map (SOM) algorithm introduced by Kohonen,which provides a robust way with neural network. In this method, the number and organization of the neurons are selected by the characteristics of the spectra, e. g., the spectra data are often changed linearly with the concentration of the components and are often measured repeatedly, etc. So the spatial distribution of the neurons can be arranged by this characteristic. With this method, all the outliers in the spectra can be detected, which cannot be solved by the traditional method, and the speed of computation is higher than that of the traditional neural network method. The results of the simulation and the experiment show that this method is simple, effective, intuitionistic and all the outliers in the spectra can be detected in a short time. It is useful when associated with the regression model in the near infra-red research.     

一种改进的聚类和孤立点检测算法

对基于距离的聚类及基于密度的孤立点检测方法进行了分析研究,提出了一种基于距离和密度的聚类和孤立点检测算法DDBCOD.该算法根据距离和密度阈值对数据进行聚类,并发现数据中的孤立点.实验表明,该算法能够识别任意形状的聚类,对高维数据有效,能够很好的识别出孤立点.     

网上购物系统的设计与开发

网上购物系统具有强大的交互功能,它的主要特点就是改变了购物只有到现实商场的惯常做法,这种全新的交易方式采用Web技术,借助于Internet互联网广泛应用,达到资源共享,实现公司间文档与资金的无纸化交换,并使商家和用户方便地传递信息,完成电子贸易或EDI交易。     

The Wrath of High-Stakes Tests

Testing has become an attractive option for policymakers both because it has the potential to affect the behavior of educators in the educational system and because it is often viewed by the public as a way to guarantee a basic level of quality education. Whatever the reasons, formal testing tied to grade promotion and graduation continues to spread throughout the United States. A qualitative narrative is provided regarding the importance of the preparation of three minority students, Snuffi, Jasmine, and Wanda, for their high-stakes mathematics test. Afterward a critique of high-stakes tests, particularly for minority students as a requirement for high school graduation in public school districts in this country is also provided. Implications are discussed for further research in mathematics education.     

基于离群点检测和PSO-BP的超短期风速预测

为降低风电场的运营成本和提高设备维护效率,提出了基于离群点检测和PSO-BP的风速预测模型。将基于距离和统计学的离群点检测方法结合,并通过分组剔除风速数据中的异常值;然后利用小波阈值去噪算法对风速数据进行去噪;最后使用粒子群算法优化后的BP神经网络进行预测。仿真结果证明,改进的离群点检测方法和小波阈值去噪降低了风速数据的波动性和随机性;对于3组不同风速数据,基于离群点检测和PSO-BP预测模型的预测精度均高于其他对比模型。     

基于离群点检测的电类实验教学中错误数据判决算法

电类实验教学在高等院校中覆盖面广,实验过程中学生所测数据量大,人工评判数据工作繁琐。随着在线实验教学的普及,迫切需要一种实验数据智能评判的方法。依据Mean Shift思想提出一种基于距离的离群点检测(MSOD)算法,以理论计算值作为初始点,沿着概率密度梯度的方向寻找数据集最稠密的位置,与该位置的距离大于某一特定值的数据为离群点,离群点数据即为测量有误的数据。实验结果表明,MSOD算法识别错误实验数据的效果较好,可以有效地减少实验教学中重复繁琐的人工评判数据的工作,节约人力成本,提高实验教学效率。与现有的离群点检测算法比较,MSOD算法提高了错误数据识别的正确率,并且降低了时间成本。