Understanding Educational Testing

Achievement testing is now a cornerstone of education policy. It is also complex and routinely misunderstood by educators, policymakers, and the media. In this course students will use statistical methods to explore and address testing issues that arise in both policy and practice. We will examine the uses and abuses of educational assessment. We will examine and interrogate trends and group differences in achievement. And we will broaden our understanding of essential concepts of measurement, such as reliability, validity, and bias, by analyzing both large and small datasets. Prior experience with the statistical package “R” is not required, as learning this package will be part of the course. 3 hrs. lect.