School of Education
University of the West Indies, St. Augustine
St. Augustine
ph: 868-477-1500
delislej
Testing for proficiency dates back to 2200 BC and the test adminsitered in China to determine fitness for the civil service. The system was an attempt to recruit men on the basis of merit, not of the family or political connection. The preparation required required memorizing the material not creative thinking. By succeeding in the exam people were entitled more privileges. Similar systems were found in Korea.
Modern psychometrics is attributed to Sir Francis Galton and his obssession with individual differences and their distribution. Cattell his student furthered the development of the field.
Psychometric theory evolved from the tradition of intelligence, or “mental ability”, testing. In 1904, Spearman invented factor analysis to aid in the measurement of intelligence. In Thurstone’s (1928) developed a law of comparative judgment for scaling of social stimuli- this was the psychophysics tradition
Robert Thurstone Charles Spearman
Classical test theory provides the foundation of how to calculate test scores and correct for measurement error to get reliable results. The theory is based on partitioning a test taker's score into two components: the "true score" that corresponds to the target of measurement (say, language skills) and a component called "error of measurement."
Harold O. Gulliksen Frederic M Lord
Item Response Theory (IRT) goes beyond the classical test theory and offers new ways to design, analyze and score psychometric assessments of human abilities, attitudes and other variables.
The Modern era is much diversified
The validity theorists
Lee Cronbach Samuel Messick Michael Kane
Pamela Moss Lyle Bachman
Fairness and test bias
Nancy Cole Rebbeca Zwick Lorrie Shepard
IRT
Ronald Hambleton
Robert Thissen
Standard Setting
Barbara Plake Gregory Cizek
Equating
Robert Brennan Michael J Kolen
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School of Education
University of the West Indies, St. Augustine
St. Augustine
ph: 868-477-1500
delislej