How Will the Assessment Be Administered?

background and professional training, school and classroom climate, and extracurricular activities available at the school, among other topics.

How Will the Assessment Be Administered?

Many international large-scale assessment programs offer paper- and computer-based administration; some countries have shifted to computer-based administration, but most still conduct their national large-scale assessment exercises using paper-based instruments. Countries may wish to consider computer-based administration because it presents several potential benefits, including the following: • Lower resource costs: The time and resources required to print, package, and transport test materials for paper-based administration is significant. • Greater test security: Paper-based administration requires that test booklets be labeled, collected, organized, and securely stored and transported; data from computer-based administrations are collected and securely stored digitally. • Greater reliability of results: Computer-based assessments can be scored automatically for all multiple-choice items and some open-ended items. Scoring test booklets by hand using an answer key is likely to be less accurate and reliable than computerized scoring because of human error; scoring by hand is also much slower. • Greater efficiency: Computer-based tests can be developed to be adaptive, meaning the test is dynamically created based on the student’s answers. Computer adaptive tests typically take less time to administer and provide more precise estimates of student proficiency than nonadaptive tests. • Greater accessibility: Computer-based assessments can be developed with accommodations that have the potential to increase test accessibility for students with visual impairments and other disabilities.

Significant barriers to implementing computer-based testing include the following: • Available infrastructure: Participating schools must have the technical capacity to deliver the assessment. All students must have access to computers, and possibly a mouse and headphones, and that computer may need to be connected to the internet. • Test fairness: Technology can affect students’ computer-based test performance. When students do not have equal access to technology at school and at home, test scores may reflect differences in the technology literacy of students instead of differences in their knowledge of or ability in the target domain. At a minimum, administration procedures should provide students with time to familiarize themselves with the test format before beginning the assessment.