Glossary of K-12 Curriculum and Assessment Terms

The K-12 education system uses many specialized words. In this glossary you’ll find frequently used terms related to curriculum and assessment (listed in alphabetical order).

Adaptation / test adaptation / transadaptation – A culturally focused process. It is used to create an instrument that is culturally, linguistically and/or psychometrically equivalent to an original testing instrument. In contrast to a test translation, a broader range of skilled professionals is required, which may include specialized translators, cultural experts, subject matter experts and psychometricians.

Administration bias – The effects caused by varying or unexpectedly adverse test administration conditions. These conditions can be social, physical or technical. For example, vague or even missing test administration instructions could prompt one exam proctor to interpret the instructions one way for their group of test takers, while another exam proctor could interpret the instructions in a completely different way for their group of test takers.

Assessment / educational assessment – The process and methods related to measuring and documenting students’ levels of specific knowledge and skills. Assessment is used for a variety of purposes, including determining students’ academic readiness, measuring students’ learning progress, placing students in appropriate courses and providing accountability for schools and teachers.

Authentic passage – A short text, or excerpt from a larger work such as an article or a book, that is chosen for inclusion in an assessment, particularly a language arts or reading comprehension assessment, but was not expressly created for this purpose.

Bias – In assessment, a term that refers to when groups of test takers with similar true abilities will as a rule receive non-equivalent scores due to the characteristics of the test. In other words, one group of test takers will receive an unfair boost while another group of test takers will encounter unwarranted barriers.

Common Core State Standards (CCSS) – A set of K-12 educational standards for language arts and mathematics. They include content and skills that students are expected to know and be able to do by the end of each grade. The Common Core State Standards were officially adopted by 41 states, the District of Columbia and four territories.

Completion question (also called a fill-in-the-blank question) – A test item that contains an incomplete statement and a blank space. Test takers are asked to provide correct information in the blank space in order to complete the statement.

Computerized adaptive testing (CAT) – Computer-administered assessments that select items of progressively higher or lower difficulty in response to the test taker’s performance.

Construct equivalence – When the assessment construct provides the same meaning and the same value to target test takers across different cultural groups. Construct equivalence is the foundation of any cross-cultural assessment that intends to produce comparative data, such as the OECD’s PISA assessment.

Constructed-response format – An item format that asks test takers to produce their own responses. These formats include: completion questions, short answer questions and essay questions.

Content standards – Specific knowledge and skills that students are expected to have and be able to demonstrate.

Curriculum – A formal plan for an educational course that defines how students will learn what they should be learning. This may include detailed learning objectives, methods, activities and outcomes.

Curriculum alignment – The process of ensuring that the curriculum, content standards, instructional and assessment methods, educational materials, learning outcomes and/or other elements are all coherent, unified and consistent so that they support and complement each other.

Curriculum development – The cyclical process of planning, creating, implementing, assessing and updating a curriculum.

Curriculum framework – Guidance or documents that address what should be taught or how to implement approved content standards in a curriculum.

Differential item functioning – A method of mapping the likelihood that people with similar abilities but who are members of different groups will experience unequal odds in providing the correct response to a test item.

Distractor – An incorrect option for a multiple-choice question.

English Learner (EL) / English Language Learner (ELL) – A K-12 student who is not a native English speaker and is currently learning English. At present they experience difficulties with the English language that prevent them from successfully participating in an English-language classroom and meeting K-12 academic standards in English. It’s estimated that EL students need five to seven years to attain English proficiency.

Equity – In education, a principle of fairness and inclusion. It aims to ensure that all students receive the tools and individual support they need to be successful, and thus have an equal opportunity to succeed.

Essay question – An item that asks test takers for an extended written response. Whether or not minimum or maximum word counts are imposed, test takers are given the freedom to answer the question in their own way.

Fairness – In assessment, this term often refers to allowing test takers the opportunity to participate in the testing process in an equitable way, even if accommodations need to be made, to ensure that testing scores and outcomes are similarly grouped according to ability level and not group attributes like race, gender, English Learner status and disability.

Formative assessment – An assessment that evaluates student comprehension and learning during a lesson or course, when the learning process is still going on. It is a form of immediate feedback that helps students to see what they know and what they don’t know, and allows teachers to identify any problem areas so they can tailor further instruction accordingly. Formative assessments may take the form of: quizzes, surveys, discussion questions, classwork, homework and end-of-chapter reviews.

High-stakes assessment / high-stakes test – A test that is used to evaluate students’ knowledge and skills, and to make key decisions on stakeholder issues, such as student graduation, school funding levels and teacher bonuses.

Inclusivity – A principle of fairness and belonging for students from all backgrounds. It aims to ensure that all students receive a high-quality education and are equally valued and respected in the classroom.

Instruction / teaching – The methods and activities that teachers use to guide students in their acquisition of new knowledge and skills.

Instructional design – The creation of learning materials and activities that allow students to acquire and apply new knowledge and skills.

Instrument bias – Bias resulting from a test taker’s familiarity (or lack of familiarity) with a particular assessment’s characteristics. As an example, let’s say that Assessment ABC uses images in each item, but the images are very culturally specific. One group of test takers may recognize the images as the test developers intended, but another group may not recognize what the images are supposed to represent. The second group would have difficulty in successfully interpreting the images and getting a high score on the assessment.

Inter-rater reliability – A term that refers to when it’s been established that assessment decisions continue to meet the same consistent standard across the board. Particularly when it comes to more subjective types of assessment, such as essay writing, where grader agreement becomes more difficult, as humans don’t always interpret or evaluate answers in exactly the same way. (Also a subtype of test reliability.)

Item / assessment item / test item – The basic unit of a test. It typically consists of a question or task for the test taker to complete.

Item bank – A collection of test questions and related documentation for each question, such as question format, correct answer, author, date created, question status or even psychometric characteristics like item response theory statistics.

Item bias – Unintended modifications that can creep in and thwart a fair test. Examples of item bias when adapting a test for use in other languages may include poor word choices that have several different meanings, are ambiguous, are unfamiliar to the audience, use a different social register, use a different reading level and change the difficulty level of the item.

Item format – A type of test item. Some examples of item formats include: multiple-choice questions, true or false questions, matching questions, completion questions, short answer questions and essay questions.

Item response theory (IRT) – A model for developing, analyzing and scoring assessments. It takes into account the difficulty of each item, the abilities of each test taker and the performance of test takers on each test item.

Key – The correct answer for a test item. This information guides scorers in their work.

Lexile / Lexile text measure – A numerical score that represents a book or text’s level of difficulty. It aids in the selection of appropriate texts for different readers.

Matching question – An item that asks test takers to match an element in one column to a corresponding element in a second column.

Method bias – This term refers to when varying test conditions result in differences that are otherwise unaccounted for.

Multiple-choice question – A common test item, which consists of a test question and a number of options from which the test taker is asked to choose the correct answer.

Options – The available choices for an item. In a multiple-choice question, there are typically four to five options, which are labeled using the letters A through E.

Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) – A set of K-12 educational standards for science. They detail what students are expected to know and be able to do by the end of each grade. The Next Generation Science Standards were officially adopted by 20 states, although many more states have adopted standards based on the NGSS.

Parallel-forms reliability – A term that refers to when multiple tests are shown to be consistently equivalent assessments that measure the same construct, knowledge or skill and result in the same observed variances. (Also a subtype of test reliability.)

Pilot testing – A small-scale trial run of an assessment. The goal is to identify and mitigate any potential problems in order to prevent them from escalating and being included in large-scale field testing.

Psychometrics – Theories and techniques concerning the measurement of knowledge, skills and abilities. In educational testing, this includes the construction and validation of assessments, and the application of measurement methods and models.

Reliability – A psychometric term that refers to how stable and consistent an assessment’s results are over time and among test takers.

Selected-response format – An item format that first allows test takers to view possible answers and then asks them to choose the correct response. These formats include: multiple-choice questions, true or false questions and matching questions.

Short answer question – An item that poses a full question to elicit a short answer; the test taker is expected to provide the correct response. As an example, “What is the capital city of Peru?”

Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing – A set of testing standards from the American Psychological Association, National Council on Measurement in Education and American Educational Research Association. It covers test construction, fairness in testing and testing applications.

Standards-based curriculum – A curriculum designed to help students acquire and demonstrate specific knowledge and skills in order to meet predefined standards.

Stem – The question, content or stimulus part of the item that test takers are asked to respond to.

Summative assessment – An assessment that evaluates student learning and academic achievement at the end of a course, school year or other defined period. Summative assessments may take the form of: end-of-year assessments, state exams, midterms, final exams, the SAT and the ACT.

Test-retest reliability – This term refers to when assessment conditions remain the same, it’s reasonable to expect results within a certain range. Test-retest reliability ensures that successive measurements produce consistent and repeatable results. (Also a subtype of test reliability.)

Through-year assessment – Also known as continuous or periodic assessments, through-year assessments are formative and summative measures of student learning that are administered multiple times throughout the school year. Unlike traditional K-12 summative assessments, which provide a snapshot of student proficiency at a single point in time, through-year assessments provide a more holistic view of student growth and progress over the course of the academic year.

Translation / test translation – A linguistically-focused process. It is used to create an instrument in one language that is linguistically equivalent to a testing instrument in another language. The skills required are linguistic in nature and performed by a translator, often with the assistance of a subject matter expert.

True or false question – An item that asks test takers to conclude whether the provided statement is true or false.

Validity – A psychometric term that refers to how effectively an assessment measures what it sets out to measure.

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