Supporting the Interpretive Validity of Student‐Level Claims in Science Assessment with Tiered Claim Structures

We address two persistent challenges in large‐scale assessments of the Next Generation Science Standards: (a) the validity of score interpretations that target the standards broadly and (b) how to structure claims for assessments of this complex domain. The NGSS pose a particular challenge for speci...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEducational measurement, issues and practice Vol. 41; no. 4; pp. 68 - 78
Main Authors Student, Sanford R., Gong, Brian
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Washington Wiley 01.12.2022
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
Subjects
Educational evaluation
Educational tests & measurements
evidence‐centered test design
Measurement
performance‐level descriptors
science assessment
Science education
Science Tests
score interpretation
score reporting
Scores
Summative Evaluation
Test Construction
test design
Test Items
Test Results
Test Validity
validation
Validation studies
validity
validity theory
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Summary:We address two persistent challenges in large‐scale assessments of the Next Generation Science Standards: (a) the validity of score interpretations that target the standards broadly and (b) how to structure claims for assessments of this complex domain. The NGSS pose a particular challenge for specifying claims about students that evidence from summative assessments can support. As a solution, we propose tiered claims, which explicitly distinguish between claims about what students have done or can do on test items—which are typically easier to support under current test designs—and claims about what students could do in the broader domain of performances described by the standards, for which novel evidence is likely required. We discuss the positive implications of tiered claims for test construction, validation, and reporting of results.
ISSN:0731-1745
1745-3992
DOI:10.1111/emip.12523