Introducing the New ITC Guidelines on Quality Control in Scoring, Test Analysis, and Reporting of Test Scores

摘要

The core business of the International Test Commission (ITC) is to enhance high standards in developing and administering tests designed to determine knowledge, skills, intelligence, ability, and other attributes of individuals across the world. The present issue of this journal publishes guidelines that are at the heart of the ITC business, namely the Guidelines on Quality Control in Scoring, Test Analysis, and Reporting of Test Scores. Avi Allalouf, the author of these Guidelines, has a clear message: During all phases of testing, be it in administering, analyzing, or reporting of test scores, it is of the utmost importance to minimize mistakes and be attentive permanently, because in testing there is no tolerance for mistakes. The reason is that the end result--the reported scores of individuals on a test--needs to provide interpretable, reliable, and valid information. In testing many errors can occur, ranging from computational to transcriptional errors and errors in reading computer output. Such errors can be large in magnitude but at the same time very illusive (Hunter & Schmidt, 1990). At the same time it goes without saying that test results can have significant consequences for individuals and organizations. With a particular focus on large-scale testing, Avi Allalouf therefore provides the readers of the Quality Control Guidelines with rich advice for all phases of testing. He gives principles to adhere to that are as diverse as the necessity to decide how to deal with wrong answers and missing data from test takers, and who has responsibility to decide how to proceed when problems occur and how to resolve these. An important asset of the guidelines is that they also include a part with step-by-step working guidelines in testing, so that the reported scores will be properly understood by test takers and client organizations.