Torrance
Assessments
Terms
Tests & Measures
100

Involves the production of ideas that are unique or unusual. It involves synthesis or putting information about a topic back together in a new way

What is Originality?

100

Evaluating student learning through the use of student portfolios, performance, or observations in place of or in conjunction with more traditional measures of performance such as tests and written assignments. The process allows students to be evaluated using assessments that more closely resemble real-world tasks

What is authentic assessment?

100

Represents a judgment or determination of value (e.g., effective or ineffective, or below, at, or above grade level) is placed on some performance

What is evaluation?

100

Tests designed to measure what students have already learned, mostly in specific content areas. An example is the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS).

What is Achievement Tests?

200

The process of enhancing ideas by providing more detail. Additional detail and clarity improves interest in, and understanding of, the topic.

What is elaboration?

200

An assessment that compares an individual’s results with a large group of individuals who have taken the same assessment (who are referred to as the “norming group”). Examples include the SAT and Iowa Tests of Basic Skills.

What is Norm-Referenced ?

200

Is simply the process of assigning a number, or a score if you will, to some performance or product. Examples would include grading a test or a homework assignment in terms of number or percent of correct or incorrect responses.

What is measurement?

200

Typically referred to as an IQ test. The test has three batteries: Verbal, Quantitative, and Nonverbal. (Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT))

What is Mental ability test?

300

Refers to the production of a great number of ideas or alternate solutions to a problem. Implies understanding, not just remembering information that is learned

What is fluency?

300

An assessment that compares a student’s test performance to his or her mastery of a body of knowledge or specific skill rather than relating scores to the performance of other students.

What is Criterion-Referenced?

300

Refers to the degree of consistency or dependability of a test

What is Reliability? 

300

Estimates how repeated measures of a person on the same instrument tend to be distributed around his or her “true” score

What is the standard error of measurement (SEM)?

400

The production of ideas that show a variety of possibilities or realms of thought. It involves the ability to see things from different points of view, to use many different approaches or strategies.

What is flexibility?

400

The extent to which an assessment measures what it is designed to measure and that the results are used to make appropriate and accurate inferences

What is valid?

500

Any student who meets the initial eligibility criteria in this rule for gifted education services in one LEA( Local Educational Agency) shall be considered eligible to receive gifted education services in any LEA within the state.

What is reciprocity?