Student Test Score Reports and Interpretive Guides: Review of Current Practices and Suggestions for Future Research

A critical, but often neglected, component of any large-scale assessment program is the reporting of test results. In the past decade, a body of evidence has been compiled that raises concerns over the ways in which these results are reported to and understood by their intended audiences. In this study, current approaches for reporting student-level results on large-scale assessments were investigated. Recent student test score reports and interpretive guides from 11 states, three U.S. commercial testing companies, and two Canadian provinces were reviewed. On the basis of past score-reporting research, testing standards, and the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, a number of promising and potentially problematic features of these reports and guides are identified, and recommendations are offered to help enhance future score-reporting designs and to inform future research in this important area.