The Texas Model for Content and Curricular Validity.

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) relied heavily on the test development process used for the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) in its defense presented during the GI Forum v. Texas Education Agency (1999) litigation. In this article, we present the Texas test development process. The process spans 3 years of assessment development that includes the 2 general areas of planning and maintenance activities. Each step of both the planning and maintenance stages is described in detail. In addition, each step of the process is either explicitly or implicitly linked to the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, & National Council on Measurement in Education, 1985). The routine use of this process by TEA and its contractors (as well as the process itself) provided strong evidence of both content and curricular validity of the TAAS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]