Item Development

Creating fair, valid, and reliable assessments, at a minimally sufficient length to yield useful information about the individuals, requires the use of high-quality items. What constitutes appropriately high quality depends on the content being measured, assessment stakeholders, and the purpose of the assessment. All these considerations must be defined and clearly articulated before item writing can take place. The process of creating these items with desirable properties is termed item development. This entry provides the basic concepts necessary to understand the item development process. Particular attention is given to identifying item and assessment purpose, item types, response space, assessment blueprints, and item specifications.