Chapter 4 Validating the specification of standards for teaching: Applications to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards’ Assessments

This chapter outlines and applies criteria for evaluating the validity of the process for establishing standards that identify what accomplished teachers in a given field should know and do. The argument defended in this chapter is that when individuals use tests and assessments for various purposes, they need to be concerned not only with the distributive validity issues relating to the adequacy of content or consequences of the assessment. They also need to evaluate the validity of the procedures used to specify the content domains that lead ultimately to decisions recommended as part of the test instrument. The procedural and the distributive fairness of tests both need to be considered when deciding on the validity of tests and assessments.