Presidential Adress: Where Were All the Psychometricians?
Anthony Zara – Assessment Services, Pearson VUE, USA
Watch the keynote stream HERE (starts at 27:54)
Abstract: The Testing industry was hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly high-stakes credentialing testing. The new government health directives caused computerized test centers to close and cease testing for a period of time. This left licensure and certification agencies without an avenue to assess eligible candidates to fulfill their missions to assure public safety through a comprehensive credentialing process. Many agencies reacted by modifying their examination process from in-person test center delivery to remote Online Proctoring. Mostly these changes were made in emergency situations, to keep the agencies relevant and preserve the idea of testing as a valid prerequisite for credentialing. However, most were made without psychometric analysis of comparability of the delivery modalities. This lack of rigorous evidence means that we still do not know whether the test results derived from the two methods are strictly comparable. Even with this validity threat, it seems likely that Online Proctoring will persist as an approved delivery method, even when the pandemic is “over”. The good news is there is a testing method that can help to mitigate many of OP’s known problems. This talk will discuss CAT as a possible solution for validity issues related to test delivery using Online Proctoring.