Office of Postsecondary Education - U.S. Department of Education

Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 209 / Friday, October 29, 2010 / Rules and Regulations66963WReier-Aviles on DSKGBLS3C1PROD with RULES2(i) One hundred and twenty days fromthe date the notice of revocation ispublished in the Federal Register; or(ii) An earlier date specified by theSecretary in a notice published in theFederal Register.(Approved by the Office of Management andBudget under control number 1845–0049)(Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1091(d))§ 668.146 Criteria for approving tests.(a) Except as provided in § 668.148,the Secretary approves a test under thissubpart if—(1) The test meets the criteria set forthin paragraph (b) of this section;(2) The test publisher or the Statesatisfies the requirements set forth inparagraph (c) of this section; and(3) The Secretary makes adetermination that the information thetest publisher or State submitted inaccordance with § 668.144(c)(17) or(d)(8), as applicable, provides adequateassurance that the test publisher or Statewill conduct rigorous test anomalyanalyses and take appropriate action iftest administrators do not comply withtesting procedures.(b) To be approved under this subpart,a test must—(1) Assess secondary school levelbasic verbal and quantitative skills andgeneral learned abilities;(2) Sample the major content domainsof secondary school level verbal andquantitative skills with sufficientnumbers of questions to—(i) Adequately represent each domain;and(ii) Permit meaningful analyses ofitem-level performance by students whoare representative of the contemporarypopulation beyond the age ofcompulsory school attendance and haveearned a high school diploma;(3) Require appropriate test-takingtime to permit adequate sampling of themajor content domains described inparagraph (b)(2) of this section;(4) Have all forms (including shortforms) comparable in reliability;(5) Have, in the case of a test that isrevised, new scales, scale values, andscores that are demonstrablycomparable to the old scales, scalevalues, and scores;(6) Meet all standards for testconstruction provided in the 1999edition of the Standards for Educationaland Psychological Testing, prepared bya joint committee of the AmericanEducational Research Association, theAmerican Psychological Association,and the National Council onMeasurement in Education incorporatedby reference in this section.Incorporation by reference of thisdocument has been approved by theDirector of the Office of the FederalRegister pursuant to the Director’sauthority under 5 U.S.C. 552(a) and 1CFR part 51. The incorporateddocument is on file at the Departmentof Education, Federal Student Aid, room113E2, 830 First Street, NE.,Washington, DC 20002, phone (202)377–4026, and at the National Archivesand Records Administration (NARA).For information on the availability ofthis material at NARA, call 1–866–272–6272, or go to: http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/code_of_federal_regulations/ibr_locations.html. The document alsomay be obtained from the AmericanEducational Research Association at:http://www.aera.net; and(7) Have the test publisher’s or theState’s guidelines for retesting,including time between test-taking, bebased on empirical analyses that arepart of the studies of test reliability.(c) In order for a test to be approvedunder this subpart, a test publisher or aState must—(1) Include in the test booklet orpackage—(i) Clear, specific, and completeinstructions for test administration,including information for test takers onthe purpose, timing, and scoring of thetest; and(ii) Sample questions representative ofthe content and average difficulty of thetest;(2) Have two or more secure, equated,alternate forms of the test;(3) Except as provided in §§ 668.148and 668.149, provide tables ofdistributions of test scores which clearlyindicate the mean score and standarddeviation for high school graduates whohave taken the test within three yearsprior to the date that the test issubmitted to the Secretary for approvalunder § 668.144;(4) Norm the test with—(i) Groups that are of sufficient size toproduce defensible standard errors ofthe mean and are not disproportionatelycomposed of any race or gender; and(ii) A contemporary sample that isrepresentative of the population ofpersons who have earned a high schooldiploma in the United States; and(5) If test batteries include sub-testsassessing different verbal and/orquantitative skills, a distribution of testscores as described in paragraph (c)(3)of this section that allows the Secretaryto prescribe either—(i) A passing score for each sub-test;or(ii) One composite passing score forverbal skills and one composite passingscore for quantitative skills.VerDate Mar2010 14:10 Oct 28, 2010 Jkt 223001 PO 00000 Frm 00133 Fmt 4701 Sfmt 4700 E:\FR\FM\29OCR2.SGM 29OCR2(Approved by the Office of Management andBudget under control number 1845–0049)(Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1091(d))§ 668.147 Passing scores.Except as provided in §§ 668.144(d),668.148, and 668.149, to demonstratethat a test taker has the ability to benefitfrom the education and training offeredby the institution, the Secretaryspecifies that the passing score on eachapproved test is one standard deviationbelow the mean score of a sample ofindividuals who have taken the testwithin the three years before the test issubmitted to the Secretary for approval.The sample must be representative ofthe population of high school graduatesin the United States.(Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1091(d))§ 668.148 Additional criteria for theapproval of certain tests.(a) In addition to satisfying the criteriain § 668.146, to be approved by theSecretary, a test must meet the followingcriteria, if applicable:(1) In the case of a test developed fora non-native speaker of English who isenrolled in a program that is taught inhis or her native language, the test mustbe—(i) Linguistically accurate andculturally sensitive to the population forwhich the test is designed, regardless ofthe language in which the test iswritten;(ii) Supported by documentationdetailing the development of normativedata;(iii) If translated from an Englishversion, supported by documentation ofprocedures to determine its reliabilityand validity with reference to thepopulation for which the translated testwas designed;(iv) Developed in accordance withguidelines provided in the 1999 editionof the ‘‘Testing Individuals of DiverseLinguistic Backgrounds’’ section of theStandards for Educational andPsychological Testing prepared by ajoint committee of the AmericanEducational Research Association, theAmerican Psychological Association,and the National Council onMeasurement in Education incorporatedby reference in this section.Incorporation by reference of thisdocument has been approved by theDirector of the Office of the FederalRegister pursuant to the Director’sauthority under 5 U.S.C. 552(a) and 1CFR part 51. The incorporateddocument is on file at the Departmentof Education, Federal Student Aid, room113E2, 830 First Street, NE.,Washington, DC 20002, phone (202)377–4026, and at the National Archives