ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the practitioner with both an appreciation for the role baseline data can play in the investigation of incidents of misconduct and some useful advice that can be used in the creation, display, and use of baseline data in practice. In high-stakes testing environments, such as when a student's promotion to the next grade or whether a teacher retains his or her position depends on the result of a testing event, incidents of assessment impropriety that may affect the validity of test scores are a concern. Establishing baseline data requires knowing what type of incident is suspected. For some types of misconduct, such as copying, it is relatively straightforward to create baseline data. The main point is that displaying baseline data in different ways, grouping on different variables, combining different variables, facilitates insights and interpretation of what may, or may not, be values suggestive of an incident of misconduct.
