Formative Assessment

Whenever we use instruments to measure things, whether it’s a yardstick to measure height, a clock to measure drive time, or a test to measure student ability, there is some amount of noise that can result in slightly different measurements each time. That noise is called measurement error. In educational testing, this measurement error is more often referred to as the standard error of measurement—abbreviated “SEM.”

Our assessment literacy video series aims to demystify, unpack, and connect assessment concepts and principles to help you make more sense out of your assessment data.

Making sense of assessment data can be complicated—we’re here to break it down so that reading your reports doesn’t require a translator. Let’s look at scale scores—the underlying way assessment performance is often reported.