Assessment Development & Item Writing Services

Our Assessment program has over thirty years of experience developing statewide objective- and performance-based assessments for educational programs across a wide array of careers. We are the primary official test vendor for the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce’s (ODEW) Career-Technical Education programs. Through this multi-decade partnership with ODEW, we deliver nearly 500,000 assessments a year to 150,000 students in 42 career pathways and 300 career-tech courses We have also created assessments for both large and small clients that need performance assessments for personnel selection and credentialing. Our team oversees teams of subject matter experts as they write written, revise, and validate test questions. CETE staff with extensive training in assessment development facilitate all test development activities from start to finish.

Using a streamlined item writing process, we can generate item banks over the course of several short, two-hour Zoom item writing workshops. During workshops, CETE’s highly trained and knowledgeable facilitators work with subject matter experts to craft items that follow best practices and common standards for high stakes assessments. Our tried-and-true workshop management techniques guide facilitators towards efficiently writing items that are fair and adequately measure skill sets, and use systemic quality assurance checks to refine and drop problematic items before they go live. Using job or practice analyses, our assessment professionals can also create performance assessment checklists that serve as a standardized way of grading portfolios and other performance-based tests.

After item bank creation, our extensive range of assessment consultation services can provide further guidance on additional processes such as tracking assessment validity and reliability or establishing cut scores. We also offer an online testing platform called WebXam™, which includes features such as immediate user feedback, adjustable scoring, and customizable score reports, and many other test administration features.

Project Contact: Dr. Bridget McHugh