You may be able to identify several ways students can be prepared to take an upcoming test, but which ways are ethical to use? There are available materials that you may purchase and use to prepare students for a test: Are they effective and is it ethical to use them? What constitutes an ethically acceptable test preparation procedure?

Attention is here directed toward the prevalence of large scale assessments (focusing primarily on state assessments). I examine the purposes of these assessment programs; enumerate both potential dangers and benefits of such assessments; investigate what the research evidence says about assessment consequences (including a discussion of the quality of the evidence); discuss how to evaluate whether the consequences are good or bad; present some ideas about what variables may influence the probabilities for good or bad consequences; and present some tentative conclusions about the whole issue of the consequences of assessment and the amount of evidence available and needed.

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Why is there such great interest in performance assessment? Are large‐scale performance assessments administratively feasible, professionally credible, publicly acceptable, legally defensible, and economically affordable?