ABSTRACT
Due to the high-stakes nature of the state standardized assessments, it is prudent for a governing body to ensure that the results from the assessments are based on effective instruction and true student achievement. While the higher score should be associated with the amount of knowledge students have learned, there are also ways to obtain higher test scores that are less related to actual learning. Some school administrators and/or teachers are thought to feel increasingly motivated to help students inappropriately during test administration or to change students’ responses thereafter. This situation creates the need for data analysis to identify this aberrant behavior. Such analyses are collectively referred to as data forensics.
