National Assessment of Student Achievement from the test theory viewpoint  

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This article focuses on the backbone of a serious assessment of student achievement,
testing theory and specifically of item analysis. It compares the classical- and modern
theories and describes the advances of the modern test theory, practically speaking Item
Response Theory (IRT) modeling over the classical one. However, in practical work the
two approaches are used conjointly though IRT modeling is used for the specific
purposes during the process: in the calibration of the item difficulty levels and in the
equating of the test scores over several test versions. Equating of the test scores by using
IRT modeling is, by far, the most efficient, inexpensive, and accurate method to measure
the change of the achievement level over different years in educational settings.