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Committee on the U.S. Naturalization Test Redesign
The Committee on the U.S. Naturalization Test Redesign has been established to provide guidance that will help the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) optimize the validity, reliability, and fairness of the redesigned naturalization tests of English and U.S. history and government and to provide an overall assessment of that validity, reliability, and fairness before the nationwide implementation of the tests in 2006. The committee will review the ongoing design decisions of the project with USCIS, examine pertinent data about the possible options, discuss technical issues with USCIS as they arise during development, provide guidance drawn from the related research literature, and consider the impact of constraints and trade-offs on the appropriateness of the decisions that affect the validity, reliability, and fairness of the resulting tests. In its final report, the committee will evaluate the validity, reliability, and fairness of the tests as a means for certifying the knowledge and understanding of English and U.S. history and government of applicants for naturalization as required by the Immigration and Naturalization Act. The committee's conclusions and recommendations will take into account the practical, financial, legal, and political constraints that limit both the types of tests that USCIS can propose and the length and cost of the process for developing those tests.
The project was funded by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services of the Department of Homeland Security for the first 12 months but after the interim report was issued the contract was not renewed for completing the committee’s work. No final report will be issued.
Meetings:
April 23-24, 2004
August 20-21, 2004
Workshops:
December 15, 2004
Reports:
Redesigning the U.S. Naturalization Tests: Interim Report
Members:
Lorraine McDonnell (Co-Chair), University of California, Santa Barbara
Barbara Plake (Co-Chair), Buros Center for Testing, University of Nebraska
Maria Carlo, University of Miami, Florida
Steven Ferrara, American Institutes for Research, Washington, DC
Michael Fix, The Urban Institute, Washington, DC
Michael Hanchard, Northwestern University
Michael Hout, University of California, Berkeley
Huynh Huynh, University of South Carolina
Guillermina Jasso, New York University
Michael Jones-Correa, Cornell University
Jane Junn, Rutgers University
David Kennedy, Stanford University
Alexander Keyssar, Harvard University
Jeffrey Mirel, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Paul Sackett, University of Minnesota
John Strucker, Harvard University
Heide Spruck Wrigley, LiteracyWork Associates, San Mateo, California
Michael Zuckert, University of Notre Dame
General Contact Information:
Board on Testing and Assessment
The National Academies
at The Keck Center
500 Fifth Street, NW – 11th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20001
Tel: 202-334-2353 | Fax: 202-334-1294
General Information: bota1@nas.edu
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