Test Development

Made by teachers, for teachers

Teachers and education experts collaborate to create Praxis tests. The design of these tests has a foundation in thorough research and input from educators, administrators, and professional organizations. The goal: to ensure that the tests accurately reflect the essential tasks and skills new teachers should possess.

Determining test content

To shape each test, a group of teachers and educators is surveyed; this group discusses what information and skills a newly licensed teacher in a specific subject or grade level should know. An Advisory Committee then defines the test’s content areas and creates guidelines.

Developing test questions

Specialists use the aforementioned guidelines to create test questions. These questions go through multiple reviews by the Advisory Committee, content experts, and ETS staff to ensure they cover the specified content. 

At every step in the test development process, ETS follows well-established industry procedures and standards that help ensure a given test measures what it is intended to measure. This iterative process creates clear links between the skills and knowledge being measured and the content of the test.

Ensuring fairness and validity

ETS uses a validation process that is consistent with the technical guidelines in the Standards for Educational and Psychology Testing (AERA, 2014). Central to this process: the connection between the content of a test and the knowledge and skills judged important for entry-level practice.

Committees of educators with ETS's subject experts conduct reviews for the appropriateness and fairness of test content. The process ends with passing-score or standard-setting studies conducted by each state or licensing agency, during which the job relatedness of the test content for that state's entry-level teachers is also evaluated.