The standards for educational and psychological testing.

Abstract

The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing have been in existence since the mid-1950s. Five versions of the Standards have been prepared between then and now, with the most recent, or fifth version, published in 1999. A sixth version of the Standards is currently in preparation and should be published in 2012 or 2013. The Standards are “joint” in nature in that they were prepared by a joint committee of testing experts representing the three sponsoring organizations (the American Educational Research Association [AERA], the American Psychological Association [APA], and the National Council on Measurement in Education [NCME]). In this chapter, the purpose of the Standards and the instruments for which the Standards are expected to apply are discussed, followed by a brief history of the evolution of the versions of the Standards over a 50-year period. Finally, a relatively in-depth discussion of the 1999 version of the Standards, the version currently in use, is presented. The chapter ends with some concluding comments about the sixth version of the Standards, now in preparation.