Item Development Planning

​Test and item development was conducted by Pearson under the guidance and oversight of the K–12 state leads, the Higher Education Leadership Team, the Technical Advisory Committee, the Operational Working Group (OWG) members from each of the member states, the Text and Content Item Review Committees, and staff members from New Meridian. Developing high quality assessment content for computer-based tests (CBT) and paper-based tests (PBT) is a complex process involving the services of many experts including assessment designers, psychometricians, managers, trainers, content providers, content experts, editors, artists, programmers, technicians, human scorers, advisors, and members of the OWGs.

Bank Analysis and Item Development

The summative item bank houses passages and items at each assessed grade level and subject. The bank supports the administration of the assessments, along with item releases and practice tests. Items are developed and tested annually. Prior to the annual item development cycle, the item development teams, in conjunction with members of the OWGs for ELA/L and mathematics, evaluated the strengths of the bank and considered the needs for future tests to establish an item development plan.

Guided by foundational documents, Pearson recruited and trained item writers and managed the item writing activity to develop the number of items specified in the annual asset development plan. Prior to further committee reviews, Pearson and New Meridian reviewed the items for content accuracy, alignment to the standards, range of difficulty, adherence to universal design principles (which maximize the participation of the widest range of students), bias and sensitivity, and copy editing.

Text Selection for ELA/L

Using the Passage Selection Guidelines, English language arts subject matter experts were utilized to search for appropriate passages to support an annual pool of passages for consideration. Pearson recruited, trained, and managed the subject matter experts to deliver the number of texts specified in the annual asset development plan. The Passage Selection Guidelines provided a text complexity framework and guidance on selecting a variety of text types and passages that allow for a range of standards/evidences to be demonstrated.

Pearson and New Meridian content experts reviewed the passages for adherence to the Passage Selection Guidelines to meet the annual asset development plan described above, prior to review and consideration by the Text Review Committee. ELA/L item development was not conducted until after texts were approved by the Text Review Committee.