The Association of Test Publishers (ATP) Conference of 2008 ended yesterday. As always, it was a good conference. In 2004 we stated, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” Being a sponsor of the conference, we placed a bag of M&M’s (i.e., manage and measure) in each attendee’s conference packet. And, we printed the message [...]

Today is the first day of the annual ATP Conference (Association of Test Publishers). This afternoon I will present a workshop titled, “Strategies and Tactics for Limiting Item Exposure.” We will be exploring innovative ideas for protecting tests and items from theft. It’s easy to understand why test publishers are concerned about test theft. High-quality [...]

There is a children’s game known by various names as “Whisper,” “Secrets,” or “Gossip” where a secret is shared and passed from one player to the next. The last player hearing the secret says it aloud, often with hilarious results. These same distortions happen in the news media, as journalists cite other reports or each [...]

Prognostications are that Mark McGwire will not be inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame this year again, because of admitted steroid use. Here is the URL to the article: http://www.nationalpost.com/sports/story.html?id=221516 In 2005, McGwire ducked the direct question whether he had used steroids or performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Many statisticians think that steroids do not improve performance, [...]

The CBS News program “60 Minutes” and the Washington Post aired an investigative report on November 16 criticizing the FBI for failing to notify relevant jurisdictions that hundreds of inmates have been jailed using a flawed forensic methodology. Despite discontinuing the use of “bullet lead” analysis in 2005 because of validity concerns, the FBI had [...]

Occasionally I search for the latest thinking about how to prevent and detect cheating on tests. I saw this presentation from the Annual Conference (2007) of the Arizona State BON (Board of Nursing) and Statewide Nurse Educators (URL is below). In my opinion this presentation is very good and provides a lot of perspective for [...]