Fairness and Validity

With ETS tests, you can be assured that the scores you receive present an accurate picture of a candidate's knowledge and skills, without bias. As part of our mission to help advance quality and equity in education by providing fair and valid assessments, we put our test questions through a rigorous review process.

Fairness Review Guidelines are used in test development to minimize bias and other characteristics that might keep some test takers from performing at levels that allow appropriate inferences about their relevant knowledge and skills.

All our tests undergo rigorous formal reviews to ensure they adhere to our fairness guidelines, which are set forth in the following publications:

• ETS Standards for Quality & Fairness — Helps ETS design, develop and deliver technically sound, fair and useful products and services.
• Constructed-Response and Other Performance Assessments — Presents guidelines to assist ETS test development expert staff in accumulating validity evidence for performance assessments.
• How ETS Works to Improve Test Accessibility — Describes the work done at ETS to enhance the accessibility of our assessments and related products.
• A DIF Primer — Explains what Differential Item Functioning (DIF) is as well as how it is used by ETS to help ensure the fairness of tests.

See also:

• How Tests are Scored
• How ETS Approaches Testing