ABSTRACT
The principles and practices that guide the design and development of test items are changing because our assessment practices are changing. Educational visionary Randy Bennett (2001) anticipated that computers and the Internet would become two of the most powerful forces of change in educational measurement. Bennett’s premonition was spot-on. Internet-based computerized testing has dramatically changed educational measurement because test administration procedures combined with the growing popularity of digital media and the explosion in Internet use have created the foundation for different types of tests and test items. As a result, many educational tests that were once given in a paper format are now administered by computer using the Internet. Many common and well-known exams in the domain of certification and licensure testing can be cited as examples, including the Graduate Management Achievement Test (GMAT), the Graduate Record Exam (GRE), the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL iBT), the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Uniform CPA examination (CBT-e), the Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Exam Part I (MCCQE I), the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN) and the National Council Licensure Examination for Practical Nurses (NCLEX-PN). This rapid transition to computerized testing is also occurring in K–12 education. As early as 2009, Education Week’s “Technology Counts” reported that educators in more than half of the U.S. states—where 49 of the 50 states at that time had educational achievement testing—administer some form of computerized testing. The move toward Common Core State Standards will only accelerate this transition given that the two largest consortiums, PARCC and SMARTER Balance, are using technology to develop and deliver computerized tests and to design constructed-response items and performance-based tasks that will be scored using computer algorithms.
