Educational Measurement

Educational measurement refers to the use of educational assessments and the analysis of such data such as scores obtained from educational tests to infer the abilities and proficiencies of students. The approaches overlap with those in psychometrics. Educational measurement is the assigning of numerals to traits such as achievement, interest, attitudes, aptitudes, intelligence, and performance.

The aim of theory and practice in educational measurement is typically to measure abilities and levels of attainment by students in areas such as reading, writing, science, mathematics and so forth. Traditionally, attention focuses on whether assessments are reliable and valid. In practice, educational assessment is largely concerned with the analysis of data from educational assessments or tests. Typically, this means using total scores in assessments, whether they are multiple choice or open-ended and marked using marking rubics or guides.

In technical terms, the pattern of scores by individual students to individual items is used to infer so-called scale location of students, i.e. the "measurements." This process is one way of scaling. Essentially, higher total scores give higher scale locations, consistent with the traditional and everyday use of total scores. If certain throry is used, though, there is not a strict correspondence between the ordering of total scores and the ordering of scale locations. The Rasch model provides a strict correspondence provided all students attempt the same test items, or their performances are marked using the same marking rubics.

In terms of the broad body of purely mathematical theory drawn on, there is substantial overlap between educational measurement and psychometrics. However, certain approaches considered to be a part of psychometrics, including Classical Test Theory, Items Response Theory, and the Rasch Model, were originally developed more specifically for the analysis of data from educational assessments.

One of the aims of applying theory and techniques in educational neasurement is to try to place the results of different tests administered to different groups of students on a single or common scales through processes known as test equating. The rationale is that because different assessments usually have different difficulties, the total scores cannot be directly compared. The aim of trying to compare results on a common scale is to allow comparison of scale locations inferred from the totals via scaling processes.

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