Technical Notes: A.3 Test development The development of the
assessment instruments is an interactive multi-step process that
involves representatives of the participating jurisdictions,
various expert committees, and an international consortium of
contractors. Generally, the first step is to develop or revise a
framework to guide the construction of the assessment. Items
that fit within the framework are submitted by participating
jurisdictions as well as developed by each study's international
consortium of test developers. Potential items are reviewed by
representatives of each jurisdiction for possible bias and
relevance to the study's framework. All items are meant to
reflect the national, cultural, and linguistic variety among
participating jurisdictions. Approved items are field-tested,
and items that perform well are identified for inclusion in an
"item pool" that is used to create the actual or "main"
assessment instruments. Design of instruments The main
assessment instruments consist of (1) test bo