Major Content Areas Covered by the ORTA readings
The readings have been grouped into 10 major content areas. The content areas are:
1. Origin and basis of testing and assessment
a. Historical perspectives
b. Nature and use of tests and measurements
c. Defining and measuring psychological and educational attributes
2. Psychometric principles of psychological and educational measurement
a. Basic concepts in measurement and statistics
b. Test theory
c. Classical test theory
d. Item Response theory (Rasch, Mokken)
e. Norms and their uses
f. Reliability
g. Validity
h. Item Analysis
3. General psychological attributes
a. Intelligence (general and separate abilities)
b. Personality
c. Interests
4. Test development
a. Process of test development
b. Computerized testing and Internet tests
c. Good practices for test developers
d. Reviewing tests
e. Preparing psychometricians
5. Test use
a. Test delivery, administration and scoring
b. Feedback and reporting
c. Preparing assessment practitioners in applied settings
d. Testing individuals with special needs
e. Fair practices in testing and test use
f. Test motivation, test anxiety, test attitudes
g. Rights and responsibilities of test-takers
h. Test security
6. Educational Testing
a. Developing and Using Educational Tests
b. Individual and institutional decision making
c. Credentialing examinations
d. Special considerations when testing children
7. Occupational Testing
a. Measures of Job Performance
b. Validity of Personnel Tests
c. Measuring complex skills (high fidelity simulations, work samples)
d. Selection interviews and the assessment center
e. Validation strategies
f. Testing in the Military
g. Occupational Integrity Testing
h. Career Testing
8. Clinical Testing
a. Diagnostic Testing
b. Clinical Tests
c. Clinical Judgment
d. Neuropsychological Assessment
e. Health-related assessment
9. Cross-cultural Testing
a. Test adaptation methodology
b. Item bias
c. Using tests in cross-cultural and multicultural settings
10. Testing and Society
a. Social implications and ethics of testing
b. Critical discussion: alternatives to psychological tests
c. Tests, policy making and politics
d. Geriatric assessment, assessment of aging
e. Forensic and psycholegal testing
f. Future perspectives
These areas are not necessarily completely independent and sometimes a reading could fall in more than one content area. For example, a reading on assessing the intelligence of children could fall under “Intelligence”, “Fair practices in testing and test use”, or “Special considerations when testing children”. A reading is classified into a content area based on the main aspect addressed in it. However, if it can also be linked to other content areas, hyperlinks will be inserted in the other content areas to make it easy to access a related reading in another content area. So, for example a reading on assessing the intelligence of children that focuses on available measures of intelligence will be stored under “Intelligence” but if it also covers aspects related to fair testing practices a hyperlink to the reading will be inserted in the section containing readings related to “Fair practices in testing and test use”.
The content areas are also flexible and additional areas and sub-areas may be added over time to both reflect the dynamic nature of the readings as well as trends in the field of testing and assessment. Furthermore, readings are added as they become available, which means that you should visit the website from time to time to see what has been added. Readers will be alerted on the website to new readings that have been added during the first and last 6 months of each year.
