Implications of Evidence‐Centered Design for Educational Testing

TLDR

ECD organizes assessment design around an evidentiary argument, providing language, concepts, and knowledge representations. The article describes ECD as a layered framework for domain analysis, argument construction, schema creation, implementation, and operation, and argues it enables designers to leverage advances in measurement, technology, cognitive psychology, and learning. ECD is implemented through layered analysis, argument construction, schema creation, and operational processes, with particular attention to large‑scale tests such as state accountability measures and computer‑based simulation tasks. The authors illustrate ECD with tools and applications drawn from the PADI project.

Abstract

Evidence‐centered assessment design (ECD) provides language, concepts, and knowledge representations for designing and delivering educational assessments, all organized around the evidentiary argument an assessment is meant to embody. This article describes ECD in terms of layers for analyzing domains, laying out arguments, creating schemas for operational elements such as tasks and measurement models, implementing the assessment, and carrying out the operational processes. We argue that this framework helps designers take advantage of developments from measurement, technology, cognitive psychology, and learning in the domains. Examples of ECD tools and applications are drawn from the Principled Assessment Design for Inquiry (PADI) project. Attention is given to implications for large‐scale tests such as state accountability measures, with a special eye for computer‐based simulation tasks.