Eliminate interferences on the test. An assessment intends to measure students' skills and knowledge in a specific academic area. For students to demonstrate what they know and are able to do, test items must be free from distractions. If items require students to recall background information outside of the subject area, it is an interference. Items requiring students to apply skills not yet taught at their current grade level also constitute interferences.
For all students to have a fair and equal test-taking experience and the opportunity to demonstrate what they know and are able to do, you must eliminate bias in the testing items. Teachers should review each item on a test to scan for possible gender or cultural bias and eliminate or revise items containing it. Using a story involving a ballet dancer in a reading comprehension test, for example, may be considered bias against boys, because girls may have more background knowledge and direct experience with ballet.
To further ensure reliability and validity of assessments, the scorer should be someone who does not hold stereotypes or negative attitudes toward the test takers. On standardized tests, companies assess potential scorers for preconceived attitudes and stereotypes. In the classroom, teachers may want to form scoring groups so they are scoring tests taken by students they are not familiar with in their classrooms. This will assist in eliminating bias and producing more reliable and valid results.
To improve the reliability of classroom tests, teachers need to increase the number of items on assessments. The number of items to include depends on the length of testing time. Another way to improve testing reliability is to review questions to ensure phrasing is clear and specific. Also, create testing items as you teach the content. This ensures students have been exposed to the skills being tested. Lastly, increasing the number of tests given also increases testing reliability, as the average score of a series of assessments is a more accurate evaluation of students' abilities.
Many companies developing standardized assessments are moving toward electronically scored student responses. This should eliminate the risk of bias in scorers, which can negatively affect producing valid and reliable results in standardized assessments. For classroom teachers, school districts determine the adoption of these new technologies for school testing. Until then, teachers should strive to remove interferences and bias from test items and scoring teams. Accuracy of results increases if classroom assessments are approached in this manner.