Standardized Testing Primer (Peter Lang Primer)

The Standardized Testing Primer provides non-specialists with a thorough overview of this controversial and complicated topic. It eschews the statistical details of scaling, scoring, and measurement that are widely available in textbooks and at testing organization Web sites, and instead describes standardized testing’s social and political roles and its practical uses – who tests, when, where, and why. Topics include: an historical background of testing’s practical uses in psychology, education, and the workplace; the varied structures of educational testing programs and systems across countries; the mechanics of test development and quality assurance; and current trends in test development and administration. A glossary and bibliography are also provided. The Standardized Testing Primer is an ideal text for teaching this subject to undergraduate and graduate students.

The Author: Richard P. Phelps received degrees from Washington, Indiana, and Harvard Universities and a Ph.D. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He taught secondary school mathematics in Burkina Faso, West Africa; worked at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris, the U.S. General Accounting Office, Westat, National Evaluation Systems, and Indiana’s Education Department; has published dozens of articles in scholarly journals; and is editor and co-author of The Anti-testing Fallacies (2007) and Defending Standardized Testing (2005); author of Kill the Messenger: The War on Standardized Testing (2003, 2005, 2007), and lead author for several statistical compendia. Phelps has received research and study fellowships from the Educational Testing Service, the American Education Finance Association, the [U.S.] National Center for Education Statistics, Harvard University, and the Wharton School.