Validity and Fairness in the Age of COVID-19: Perspectives from the Standards

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

Abstract
This symposium focusses on the impact of COVID-19 on the validity and fairness of current testing practice. Overnight, the pandemic has changed the ways in which we are teaching and assessing students. Simultaneously, there has been a profound effect on licensing and certification testing, on college admission testing, and on clinical testing, as well as on the training of individuals in these fields. Assessment professionals have been faced with options such as abandoning testing completely or changing the mode of testing dramatically (e.g., remotely administering a test in a student’s home that has always been administered in a classroom setting). Everyone has a right to fair and valid assessment, but what do fair and valid mean under current circumstances?
Symposium Description
This symposium has been organized to explore the question of whether and how the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing provide guidance and criteria for responding to current inequities and supporting the validity and fairness of test use. The symposium will explore various test sectors, including National Assessment, State Assessment, English Language Learners, Clinical Assessment and Local Assessment. Participants will speak to how COVID-19 has impacted assessment in their area and how, or if, the Standards provide the guidance they need to address important issues.
Every testing decision that is currently being made will have an impact on the validity and fairness of the interpretations and uses of the test scores. Prior to the pandemic, many test users worked hard to address validity and fairness issues. Still, the pandemic has vividly exposed inequities in our education system and society that challenge fair and valid assessment. Inequities in opportunity to learn, access to the internet, access to technology, a quiet place to study and to take an assessment, and parental availability to help with learning and assessment are just a few of the issues exposed by the pandemic.
The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, & National Council on Measurement in Education, 2014) provide criteria and guidance for assessing the validity of test score interpretation and use. If effective, the Standards should provide the necessary criteria and guidance for fair and valid testing that test users need now as they struggle to make decisions about how to test in a COVID-19 environment.
Only the passing of time will provide the complete narrative about the effects of COVID-19 on our way of life as we experienced it prior to 2020. After almost a year into the pandemic, it is clear that the effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic are profound and many of the changes we are experiencing will become a permanent part of our future, and that reality makes the topic of this symposium one of tremendous educational significance.

Sub Unit

• AERA Sessions

Cosponsors

• APA

• NCME

Chairs

• Linda L. Cook, Educational Testing Service

• Frank C. Worrell, University of California - Berkeley

Papers

• Classroom and Local Assessments in the Age of COVID-19 - Kristen L. Huff, Curriculum Associates, Inc.

• State Accountability Testing in the Age of COVID-19 - Scott F. Marion, National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment, Inc.

• The Assessment of English Learners in the Age of COVID-19 - Guillermo Solano-Flores, Stanford University

• Clinical Testing of Students of Color in the Age of COVID-19 - Lisa Ann Suzuki, New York University

Discussants

• Joan L. Herman, University of California - Los Angeles/CRESST

• Jennifer Randall, University of Massachusetts