Assessment & Qualification Research
Pearson’s Assessment business is a critical part of the company portfolio. This services business supports our customer requests by designing, building, administering, scoring, and reporting on test-taker performance. Assessments take place in many different contexts (classrooms, workplaces, etc.) and are needed for different purposes, including to support classroom instruction through progress monitoring and to certify a person’s fitness for employment in a given occupation.
Just like the students who use our courseware products in the classroom, the people who take our assessments are learners on a journey. Taking a test is not a learning experience in and of itself, but rather, the scores and diagnostic information from assessments may be used by instructors and others to make decisions about a learner’s progress along their journey.
Therefore, a measure of efficacy for assessments is not whether taking the test leads directly to higher achievement or passing the course, but rather, whether or not the scores and other diagnostic information provide an accurate snapshot of what the learner knows and can do. In other words, the efficacy of an assessment is its fitness for a given purpose.
The fitness of an assessment for a given purpose is, in turn, defined by three primary qualities or attributes of test scores and their use: validity, reliability, and fairness. The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA, NCME, 2014) have defined these attributes as follows:
- Validity is “the degree to which evidence and theory support the interpretations of test scores for proposed uses of tests” (p. 11). Simply put, the results of an assessment should be an accurate measure of the knowledge or ability the product is meant to assess.
- Reliability is “the consistency of scores across replications of a testing procedure” (p. 33). A test-taker’s scores should stay consistent even if they take the test on various different occasions, or the test is administered and rated by various different people.
- Fairness suggests that “scores have the same meaning for all individuals in the intended population” (p. 50). Fairness implies that assessment products should not disadvantage any particular group of test-takers. Test results should only vary according to the different levels of knowledge or ability the product is assessing, not according to the demographics of the test-takers.
The reports on our assessment products are not externally audited, because the auditing framework is organized around learner outcomes, and as discussed above, we typically do not expect our assessment products to have a direct effect on learner outcomes.
Qualifications
Qualifications provide evidence of students’ achievements against subject content in a specification, giving students the confidence that the skills, knowledge and understanding that they will have acquired during the course of their study provides a strong foundation for further academic and vocational study, and for employment.
UK qualifications encompass both subject content that must be taught and assessments aligned to that subject matter.
Microsoft Office Specialist program
Certification programs offer an effective way to address the digital skills gap. The Certiport Microsoft Office Specialist certification program gives employers and educators a way to assess which candidates can command the full features and functionality of Microsoft Office applications, to support hiring and selection decisions.
A Level Mathematics Qualification – UK
Qualification reform brings both opportunities and challenges. This report offers insight into the work taking place at Pearson to capitalize on the opportunities of the reformed A Level Mathematics while mitigating the impact of challenges arising during enactment. It presents not only an overview of the processes involved in developing the reformed qualification, but also a snapshot of its journey so far.
BTEC Nationals in Health and Social Care
BTEC Nationals are specialist career-focused qualifications that offer routes into employment or higher education, giving them a unique position in England’s education system. This report highlights a range of research and analysis that has taken place over the past six years and will continue for the remainder of the lifetime of the current BTEC National qualifications.
Read the BTEC Nationals in Health and Social Care — UK report
Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal
Critical thinking is essential for success in education and the workplace. The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal assesses an individual’s ability to analyze written information, interpret it, and draw logical conclusions from it. It addresses the challenges of higher education professionals, HR professionals, and employers by giving them the means to measure critical thinking ability as a first step toward supporting its development.
Read the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal full report
Explore the guide that profiles real Watson-Glaser customers
GCSE Mathematics Qualification — UK
This report includes information about the research that informed the qualification’s design, and any guidance about how the qualification, is impact on learner outcomes like experience and progression. It also summarizes all the relevant technical reports associated with the assessment component of the qualification and any impact evaluation research related to the impact the qualification has on learner outcomes.
Pearson Test of English–Academic
Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic) is a computer-based international English language test designed to measure test takers’ academic English language competency in listening, reading, speaking and writing.
aimswebPlus
AimswebPlus is an assessment, data management, and reporting system designed to help instructors monitor K–8 students’ math and reading skills.
WISC-V
The Wechsler Intelligence Test for Children — Fifth Edition (WISC-V) is a comprehensive intellectual ability assessment for children aged 6–16.
GED Testing Service
The GED Testing Service helps adult learners obtain the credentials they need to progress in the workplace, in job training programs, and in a range of post-secondary education options.