Linking and Comparability across Conditions of Measurement: Established Frameworks and Proposed Updates

One result of recent changes in testing is that previously established linking frameworks may not adequately address challenges in current linking situations. Test linking through equating, concordance, vertical scaling or battery scaling may not represent linkings for the scores of tests developed to measure constructs differently for different examinees, or tests that are administered in different modes and data collection designs. This article considers how previously proposed linking frameworks might be updated to address more recent testing situations. The first section summarizes the definitions and frameworks described in previous test linking discussions. Additional sections consider some sources of more disparate approaches to test development and administrations, as well as the implications of these for test linking. Possibilities for reflecting these features in an expanded test linking framework are proposed that encourage limited comparability, such as comparability that is restricted to subgroups or to the conditions of a linking study when a linking is produced, or within, but not across tests or test forms when an empirical linking based on examinee data is not produced. The implications of an updated framework of previously established linking approaches are further described in a final discussion.