Fairness Issues in Educational Assessment

Fairness and ethicality have been at the center of the debates on the appropriate use of educational tests since the 1960s. Particularly in high-stakes contexts, it is clear that fairness should be a major concern to both the test developers, and to those being tested, given that the fairness of a test is so intertwined with its validity.

Fairness Issues in Educational Assessment aims to shed more light on the issue and bring to sight some of the ways in which test fairness can be addressed. The contributions, written by some of the most prominent figures in educational assessment, address both theoretical and practical aspects of test fairness. The wealth of ideas presented here will be valuable to novice researchers and help them appreciate both the joy and complexity of conducting fair educational measurement.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Educational Research and Evaluation.

Hossein Karami is a Lecturer in the English Department, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, at the University of Tehran, Iran. His areas of interest include validity and fairness, especially in the context of language testing. His work has appeared in various journals including Educational Research and Evaluation,RELC Journal, Psychological Test and Assessment Modeling, TESOL Journal, andAsia-Pacific Education Review.