THE RESULTS OF THE UNT SYSTEM STUDY CONDUCTED BY WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE WORLD BANK PROJECT

Abstract

The presentstudyisacomprehensivepsychometricanalysisof the UnifiedNationalTesting(UNT) system in the Republic of Kazakhstan,conductedwithin the framework of the WorldBank's project«Modernization of SecondaryEducation»(hereinafter-WB). The study is basedon a multi-level approachcombiningthreekeycomponents:professionaltraining of 350testdevelopersinaccordancewithinternationalstandards of testology;creationandpsychometricvalidation of a databaseof8,848testtasksin15disciplines;application of complementaryanalyticalmethods(CTTandRaschmodels). The keyresults of the studydemonstrate a highlevel of psychometricconsistency of the developedtoolkit:90.7% of tasksmeet the criteria of validityandreliability.Statisticallysignificantdifferencesinreliabilityindicatorsbetween the subjectareasand the languageversions of the tests have been revealed,whichrequiresfurtherstudy taking intoaccountcognitive and linguisticfactors.Specialattention is paid to the analysis of the differentiatingability of tasksand the effectiveness of the distractorapparatus. The resultsconfirm the correctness of methodologicalapproachesto the development of testmaterialsandtheirability to reliablydifferentiatesubjectsby the level of subjecttraining. The practicalsignificance of the researchlays the foundationforfurtherresearchandrecommendationsinthisarea. The studyis of interesttospecialistsin the field of psychometry,developers of testmaterialsandeducationalpolicy makers involved in improvingeducationalachievementassessmentsystems.