Quality standards play an important role in ensuring that assessments are reliable and error-free. Understanding this imperative, ETS employs quality assurance experts, internal and external, who work with our assessment developers.  We have two barometers that ensure fairness and objectivity in all steps of design and development.

The ETS Fairness Review requires ETS to review all tests and test materials to ensure that they do not include insensitive or offensive material.

The ETS Standards for Quality and Fairness  comprise quality assurance steps addressing

• audit requirements
• customer service
• uses and protection of information
• fairness, validity and reliability
• assessment development, use, administration and reporting of assessment results
• cut scores
• scaling and equating
• test takers’ rights and responsibilities

These standards reflect ETS’ commitment to the principles of transparency, accountability and fairness in testing. Used on a regular basis by ETS staff and external evaluators, our quality guidelines are prescriptive and exhaustive:

• Build in quality assurance checks at each stage of the New Product Development process, whether considering client input, or evaluating the finished product at regular intervals to check its continued relevance: ETS products are characterised by strong customer focus and supported by documented processes that pre-empt future ambiguity
• Gather empirical evidence to verify that products and services meet the objectives they were intended for
• Design products that are universal: Recognising the diversity present in our client population, ETS designs products that are applicable to all segments. For instance, content that may be considered offensive to any segment is carefully avoided. ETS also provides appropriate services to people with disabilities  in order to facilitate their use of ETS products
• Maintain the confidentiality of any personal information that may be collected from customers. We also provide any information necessary to allow for a proper evaluation of our products and services
• Ensure that assessments are valid : Validity is one of the most important attributes of assessment quality. Our strict quality processes provide empirical evidence to show that each assessment measures what it is intended to measure
• Ensure that the assessments are reliable : ETS assessments are rigorously tested to check that they are reliable and as free as possible of errors caused by random variation in external factors
• ETS scores are meaningful and comparable to scores on other assessments; ETS offers industry standard assessments whose scores are comparable to other assessments. In addition, we have created a meaningful frame of reference that allows users to interpret scores relevant to their needs
• Provide all essential information to facilitate the use of ETS products and services: All test administrators and test takers are provided with pertinent information that allows for an accurate administration mechanism. Also, users are given the opportunity to consult with ETS staff on the appropriate use of assessments
• Ensure accuracy of scoring: ETS has time-tested and established procedures that ensure accuracy of scoring
• Inform test takers of their rights: Test takers are informed of their rights when taking an ETS assessment, including how to report a grievance, if any