Test Development: Fundamentals for Certification and Evaluation

Test Development: Fundamentals for Certification and Evaluation provides practical guidelines for the classical approach to test development – specifically for certification and credentialing. Most of the existing high-quality books on the topic of criterion-referenced test (CRT) development are written for professional statisticians and psychometricians. And the books written for the general reader tend to lack accurate, user-friendly coverage of some of the most critical topics. This book serves as an accessible resource on test development that does not require any technical background or expertise. Part I, Conceptual Principles, covers the process of CRT development in narrative form. Some of the topics covered include:

defining content domain as related to job analysis and assessment objectives

item writing and scoring

understanding validity and reliability

conducting item analysis

defining and differentiating the major standard setting method

preparing for and understanding issues with test administration.

Part II, the Technical Appendix, contains the computational instructions and supplementary background material. This do-it-yourself manual is a valuable resource for training program developers, credential program developers, as well as other relevant human resources personnel and upper management who need to be on board for change management related to testing programs.

Melissa Fein, PhD, has graduate degrees in statistics, psychology, and economics, along with coaching certification, and first started working in the field of training evaluation in 1988. She began private consulting on industrial psychology/evaluation issues in 1996, and for a number of years was affiliated with the Maryland Assessment Research Center for Education Success (MARCES), at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she has taught a variety of courses in measurement, statistics, and evaluation.