Innovations in Validity Assurance and the 2014 GED Test

Alexander M. Hoffman, AleDev Consulting
Marjorie Wine, GED Testing Service

Abstract

The development of items for standardized tests has traditionally been a black box, in which standards and assessment targets are turned into items without examination by researchers or establishment of a profession. The new demands of the Common Core State Standards have pressured the assessment industry to develop assessments for skills it has never assessed before. In this paper, we open that black box and examine how principles of organizational learning have been applied to extend ECD to item writing and review by focusing on how the GED Testing Service developed innovative new practices and tools to meet these challenges.