[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Placement Tests & Remedial Classes
Placement tests typically are constructed according to domain-referenced principles, but evidence of their match to curriculum content needs to be buttressed with evidence of their decision-making accuracy. This is because the inferences we make of scores e.g., that students will fail in the curriculum without remediation, that placement scores lead to enrollment decisions and therefore higher ratios of course success are the targets of validation, not just the content of the test instrument.
Though, validation this test is quite impossible, institutions need to review their curriculum for assumptions about the progressive relationship of their courses and to experiment with samples of students and test data before implementing a placement system. Multiple regression and decision-theoretic approaches can be used to gather criterion-related validity data, assuming that a linear relationship exists between the skills being tested by the placement test and the performances rewarded during instruction. Confidence in using grades as the criterion of performance should be supported, ideally, by outcomes assessment strategies or other evidence that appropriate course standards are being maintained.
Data gathered for studies strongly supported the institution's decision to drop the placement tool. Although reviewers found the CGP tests "models of what good testmakers can produce . . . carefully pretested, normed with caution, and described with proper humility" and possessed with "psychometric qualities . . . as good as anyone could make them", the test was not a useful tool for determining who should and should not take 1234, for several reasons.
First, it appears there is a classic mismatch between test and curriculum content and performance: The test elicits convergent thinking about a body of knowledge about language whereas the course elicits (and evaluates) divergent thinking and the production of language. Predictive validity data are limited by the restricted student performance........
