Publications & Resources

Evidence and Inference in Educational Assessment

May 1996

Robert J. Mislevy

“Data” from educational assessments become “evidence” only with respect to conjectures about students and their work, says Robert Mislevy in this report based on his 1994 presidential address to the Psychometric Society. Those conjectures are constructed around notions of the character and acquisition of knowledge and skill, and shaped by the purpose of the assessment and the nature of the inference required. Using a detailed analytic framework, the author demonstrates how the concepts and tools of mathematical probability can help explain relationships between evidence and inference about students’ knowledge, learning, and accomplishments.

Mislevy, R. J. (1996). Evidence and inference in educational assessment (CSE Report 414). Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles, National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST).