Centre for Positive Psychology and Education

This presentation will provide an overview of the observed-score equating (OSE) process in the historical context of standardized educational assessments. The overview will be presented from the perspective of a unifying equating framework that covers all the existing OSE methods (von Davier, 2011), including the IRT observed-score equating and the local equating (van der Linden, 2003; Wiberg, van der Linden, von Davier, in progress). The presentation will also discuss challenges to the equating process and approaches to equating evaluation. The application of quality control tools to monitor the scores over time will be briefly described. The policy around the use of test scores, the constraints on the of the scale scores, the shifts in demographics, and their implications for the choice of specific equating methodologies will be analyzed.

Alina A. von Davier is a Strategic Advisor in the Research & Development Division at Educational Testing Service (ETS) in Princeton, NJ. She is also an Adjunct Professor at Fordham University. Her Ph.D. in mathematics was earned at the Otto von Guericke University of Magdeburg, Germany, and her M.S. in mathematics is from the University of Bucharest, Romania. Dr. von Davier is responsible for fostering research relationships between ETS and the psychometric field, nationally and internationally, and for providing psychometric support to several international assessments. She has led an ETS Research Initiative called “Equating and Applied Psychometrics” for the past seven years.  During her tenure at ETS, Dr. von Davier was the Research Center Director of the Global Psychometric Services (GPS) Center. The GPS center supports the psychometric work for all large ETS international programs, such as TOEFL iBT and TOEIC. She co-authored a book on the kernel method of test equating and guest co-edited for a special issue on population invariance of linking functions for Applied Psychological Measurement. She edited a volume on new models for test equating and authored a book on testing causal hypotheses. Currently she is co-editing a book on multi-stage testing. She published research articles in several leading psychometrics journals. Prior to working for ETS, she worked in Germany at the Universities of Trier, Magdeburg, Kiel, and Jena, and the ZUMA in Mannheim. She also worked at the Institute of Psychology of the Romanian Academy, and was a visiting scholar at the Stockholm School of Economics.

• Observed-Score Test Equating. An Overview - Presentation (opens in a new window)