Thursday, February 2

Today we discussed chapter 4 and 5. We talked about the purpose of testing and how important it is to make tests that are fair and measure what is discussed in class. Most of the class period was spent discussing criterion and norm referenced testing and where the overall goals of testing come from. Also, we discussed how important it is that tests are unbiased in their word choice so that all students understand what the question is asking. I thought it was an interesting point that some students may not understand what is considered a common reference to others and so may influence how a student does on a test. This class made me think about the time and effort that goes into creating tests that measure students fairly.