Re: [Phys-l] A challenge.

["Dan Crowe" <Dan.Crowe@Loudoun.K12.VA.US>]

Is anyone else bothered by the policy that reinforces the "smart" vs. "dumb" kids scores?  I can imagine that there are valid questions that otherwise higher-scoring students miss more frequently that otherwise lower-scoring students.  If such questions exist, then systematically rejecting such questions reduces the validity of the entire test.

Daniel Crowe
Loudoun County Public Schools
Academy of Science
dan.crowe@loudoun.k12.va.us
> > > Bernard Cleyet <bernardcleyet@redshift.com> 11/26/09 11:35 PM >>>
Posted on PTSOS by Dean Baird:

The process by which an item makes it on to the CST is ... involved.  
Add a few more steps for those that get released.

Items are developed by ETS and screened by the California Department  
of Education and by its Assessment Review Panel. If that all goes  
well, the item is field-tested. The item must perform well on a  
series of psychometric measures. Most importantly, the item must be  
neither too easy nor too hard, based on student performance on the  
item. And the item must discriminate well. That is, students who  
perform well on the test overall should perform well on the item. And  
students who don't perform well on the test overall should perform  
poorly on the item. There are always some items that "smart" kids get  
wrong and "dumb" kids get right. Those items are rejected.

<snip>