methods thoughts

We must move beyond traditional statistical and research-based approaches to focus on item experience—the process by which individuals attend to, interpret, abstract, and respond to the constituent elements of a test item. Each of these elements—wording, implied time frame, reference class, emotional salience, response format, and contextual assumptions—contributes to an item-level environment that shapes how the item is experienced rather than merely endorsed. It is this item-level environment, interacting with the contextualized individual, that produces the observed response. Subgroup analyses attempt to model relatively homogeneous patterns of these item experiences, with the recognition that any subgroup reflects structured regularities rather than uniformity, and that similarities and divergences exist both within and across groups. This complex experience of item experience is the abstraction process, so it seems to me (if by nothing but by another name). I do not believe we can explain this process to the point of actuarial supportial in our tests for their specific items in their current form, and this poses a substantial problem for the field and the practice of assessment. That, itself, is where bias is found (or may be) and decades of evidence suggests it’s there. I dont think we have this type of data for any test, and given the politicicalization of the judicial, extreme caution to protect minoritized communities becomes even more paramount. This gap of knowlesge is a major problem needing a complex solution fast, or not merely risk real harm but nearly guarantee more of it.