Large-Scale Student Assessment: Guidelines for Policymakers

Targeted for policy-makers, this article provides suggestions for ensuring that the benefits of using large-scale student assessments are achieved in the face of a number of challenges to their effective use. Fundamental concepts and concerns are reviewed in the context of making valid inferences from test scores. A unique feature of this ar-ticle is that the author draws on his recent experiences in the educational policy arena. Despite their utility for (a) determining whether students are meeting the stan-dards set for their achievement and (b) for providing information for improving student achievement, large-scale assessments are not typically used well. The purpose of this article is to provide policy-makers with suggestions for ensuring that the benefits of using large-scale student assessments are achieved in the face of a number of challenges to their effective use (cf. Taylor & Tubianosa, 2001; Kohn, 2000). This article addresses major challenges to the effective use of large-scale stu-dent assessments, but does not address many issues affecting the construction of the assessments to ensure their psychometric integrity. One challenge is to distinguish between norm- and criterion-referenced assess-ment. Norm-referenced assessments are primarily aimed at determining how well students perform in relation to one another. Criterion-referenced assessments are primarily aimed at determining which students have achieved mastery of a body of knowledge deemed appropriate for the students who take the test, although they are occasionally used to make comparisons among students. This article addresses the use of criterion-referenced large-scale student assessments (CRLSAs) a