High School Exit Exams and Mismeasurement

Abstract

Test score validity takes center stage in the debate over the use of high school exit exams. Scant literature addresses the amount of conditional standard error of measurement (CSEM) present in individual student results on high school exit exams. The purpose of this study is to fill a void in the literature and add a national review of the CSEM, including data on the amount of CSEM present in high school exit exams results. Individual student results from each of the 23 exit exams contained a CSEM ranging from 3.29 to 39 scale-score points. Nearly one-fourth of the state education agencies did not report the CSEM for the individual student results.