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Exhibition on Testing and Measurement: A Few Comments

Ronald K. HambletonUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst

A symposium at the 2010 NCME Meeting, Denver.

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Congratulations!• National Institute for Testing and

Evaluation in Israel, and specifically, Avi Allalouf and Yoav Cohen, deserve our appreciation for the idea of the exhibit, and their hard and creative work in putting the exhibit together.

• Our field and the many persons who will see the exhibit around the world are going to benefit.

• May stimulate others too, to take a look at our history—we need to know our history!

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Why is there a need for the exhibit?

• The measurement field is important to the world, and the history is interesting.

• The measurement field is full of myths and misunderstanding that need to be fixed.

--e.g., IQ testing got it start in World War 1 and was used by the military for screening recruits and allocating talent where it would be most useful. May have shortened the war.

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Why is there a need for the exhibit? (continued)

--e.g., Every day well chosen and constructed tests help in the selection of employees, identifying candidates for medical schools, helping counselors do their important work, credentialing persons in a 1000 professions, and on it goes.

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What are the three main messages the exhibit conveys?

• That the impact and the developments are world-wide.

• That testing practices have played an important role in many aspects of our lives—education, industry, psychology.

• That there is an underlying science to it—theories, systematic research, validation.

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Which measurement topic is the most difficult to explain to the

public?• I asked my wife, and she said the hardest

thing for her to understand is how something as simple as constructing a test (write items, administer, and assign scores) can be represented by many indecipherable mathematical equations!

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Which measurement topic is the most difficult to explain to the

public?• Perhaps we need an exhibit, starting with

“X=T + E”, and building up so persons can see the value of equations, and how a theory of testing is important for describing errors, true scores, and constructing tests.

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How can persons be attracted to the museum?

• Publicity, to attract some attention• The exhibits needs to be balanced in

treatment of the subject matter—e.g., for too long in the US, we have focused on norm-referenced testing and the normal distribution.

-- Extensions to classroom testing have been problematic and destructive, and generated lots of criticism and misuse.

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How can persons be attracted to the museum?

• Make it interesting, highlight the application to everyday life, and educate, and people will come—include prominent debates (NRT vs. CRT; P&P vs. Computers; CTT vs. IRT)