ABSTRACT
A test score is a summary of the evidence contained in an examinee's re sponses to the items of a test that are related to the construct or constructs being measured. The sort of summary desired, and the extent to which that summary is intended to generalize beyond the specific responses at hand, depend strongly on the theoretical orientation of the test scorer. There are, broadly speaking, two schools of thought on this matter. One point of view is the purely empirical: It sees the test score as a summary of responses to the items on the test and generalizes no further. An alterna tive approach views the item responses as indicators of the examinee's level on some underlying trait or traits; in this context, it is appropriate to draw inferences from the observed responses to make an estimate of the examinee's level on the underlying dimension(s).
