Explain why educational professionals are test users and why it is so important for most educators to follow professional practice standards. Include discussion of when it might be difficult to follow all professional practice standards.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

• A variety of individuals—from classroom teachers to district-level administrators—use psychological tests in educational settings to make a wide range of important decisions.
• Because educational administrators, teachers, and other educational create, administer, score, and use the results of psychological tests, they are test users.
• As test users, all educational professionals who participate in any part of the testing process should be properly trained on the appropriate use of psychological tests.
• When educational professionals who use psychological tests are not properly informed and trained, the consequences to students, teachers, and schools can be significant.
• Although all test users in educational settings should be sufficiently trained on the proper use of psychological tests, following all professional practice standards, such as conducting formal validation studies, is not always a reasonable expectation for teacher-made classroom tests.
• Schools and teachers often use tests in their own classrooms to inform learning and instruction—they don’t often select or develop standardized tests for broader use by others.
• Furthermore, sometimes schools and teachers do not have the resources needed to document the characteristics of their tests. For this reason, some professional practice guidelines, such as the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing apply primarily to more formal, standardized tests—such as benchmark tests used outside of the classroom to monitor student progress—and to standardized tests that educational professionals used across multiple classrooms and whose developers have provided evidence of validity for intended uses.
• Nonetheless, as reinforced by the Standards , all test users in educational settings should consider whether the tests they select or use have evidence of validity and reliability/precision and are fair.