ABSTRACT
The increasing diversity in the populations of most countries in the world has been accompanied by an equal diversity in the students taking tests. The number of female test-takers in most countries has grown, for example, as has the proportion of students from various ethnic and religious and regional groups, the proportion of students with disabilities, and the number of students of relatively low socioeconomic status. Testing, further, has increased in scope and is used by more and more institutions worldwide for more and more purposes: admission not only into universities and graduate and professional schools but also into several lower-level academic institutions, including primary schools, secondary schools, and technical schools; placement into courses at these schools; placement out of courses and for graduation; diagnosis of student strengths and weaknesses for remediation; certification and licensing for any number of professions from plumbing to psychiatry; providing a snapshot of a nation’s level of academic accomplishment or a comparison of the academic levels of students from several nations; the granting of advanced standing to students or professionals; and so on (see for example, Carlton, 2001, 2005; Aina, 2005; UNESCO, 2005, 2006).
