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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Have the tests that have been developed for these standards been validated?  Have they been checked for reliability?  Doubtful.[/quote]

http://www.parcconline.org/did-you-know-what-construct-validity?utm_source=PARCC+Updates+12%2F18%2F14&utm_campaign=11%2F13%2F2014+Update&utm_medium=email

Did You Know: What is Construct Validity?

What is construct validity? Why is it important in a high quality assessment?

We asked Jeff Nellhaus, PARCC's Chief of Assessment and former deputy commissioner of education in Massachusetts to answer:

Construct validity is the degree to which a test measures what it claims to measure. For example, to determine if someone can drive a car, a test should include driving, which is the best way for a person to demonstrate their ability. Driving is the main construct, but driving is made up of many smaller constructs such as turning a corner, maneuvering in heavy traffic, and obeying the rules of the road. A driving test that only requires driving on a straight road without any traffic or traffic signals would have low construct validity. A better test would require entering and exiting a major highway during rush hour and parallel parking, because it is made up of multiple skills needed to drive.

Similarly, a test designed to determine whether students can read, write, and solve mathematical problems must ask students to do those things and to do them in a way that allows students to show they have acquired the breadth of knowledge and skills in those areas appropriate to their grade level.

The PARCC assessments are designed to measure the academic standards in the English language arts/literacy and mathematics Common Core State Standards. The standards are the constructs that identify what students should be taught and learn at each grade level so that by the time they graduate from high school they have the reading, writing and mathematical knowledge and skills needed to succeed in college and/or jobs with career potential.

[b]The PARCC states adopted principles of evidence-centered design to ensure the PARCC tests have construct validity. Evidence-centered design principles required the PARCC states to identify the standards to be measured. Then it required the development of evidence statements, which describe the types of performance students must demonstrate to show they have met the standards. The test questions and tasks were developed to produce the evidences called for by the evidence statements. The PARCC states then involved hundreds of state content experts and local educators in many reviews of every PARCC test question prior to field testing in spring 2014 to confirm the likelihood that they would elicit answers that produce the expected evidence. Finally, reviewers checked again after field testing, to see if the test questions and tasks adequately generated the desired performances.[/b]

To ensure that individual test questions and tasks “add up” to measure the full range of the Common Core standards, PARCC states developed detailed test blueprints. [b]The blueprints specify the number and types of questions measuring different constructs that should be included on the tests to ensure the full range of the standards are covered and the test produces reliable results.[/b]

Establishing the validity of any test continues yearly, even after a test has been in place for decades. [b]PARCC is conducting research based on the field test it conducted last spring to produce additional evidence of the validity of its assessments.[/b] PARCC has also [b]agreed to participate in a study on construct validity in the winter/spring of 2015[/b] being conducted by the Fordham Institute and the Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO).

December 17, 2014[/quote]

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