Test (assessment) in the context of Inspection

An academic certificate or tech certificate is a document that certifies that a person has received specific education or has passed a test or series of tests.

In many countries, a certificate is a qualification attained in secondary education. For instance, students in Ireland sit the Junior Certificate and follow it with the Leaving Certificate. Similarly, other countries have awards, for instance, in Australia the Higher School Certificate (HSC) in New South Wales, the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) in Victoria, etc., is the examination taken on completion of secondary education. In parts of the United Kingdom the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is the normal examination taken at age 16 and the General Certificate of Education (GCE) Advanced Subsidiary Level (AS-level) and Advanced Level (A-levels) are taken at 17 and 18.

A standardized test is a test that is administered and scored in a consistent or standard manner. Standardized tests are designed in such a way that the questions and interpretations are consistent and are administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner.

A standardized test is administered and scored uniformly for all test takers. Any test in which the same test is given in the same manner to all test takers, and graded in the same manner for everyone, is a standardized test. Standardized tests do not need to be high-stakes tests, time-limited tests, multiple-choice tests, academic tests, or tests given to large numbers of test takers. Standardized tests can take various forms, including written, oral, or practical test. The standardized test may evaluate many subjects, including driving, creativity, athleticism, personality, professional ethics, as well as academic skills.

Test validity is the extent to which a test (such as a chemical, physical, or scholastic test) accurately measures what it is supposed to measure. In the fields of psychological testing and educational testing, "validity refers to the degree to which evidence and theory support the interpretations of test scores entailed by proposed uses of tests". Although classical models divided the concept into various "validities" (such as content validity, criterion validity, and construct validity), the currently dominant view is that validity is a single unitary construct.

Validity is generally considered the most important issue in psychological and educational testing because it concerns the meaning placed on test results. Though many textbooks present validity as a static construct, various models of validity have evolved since the first published recommendations for constructing psychological and education tests. These models can be categorized into two primary groups: classical models, which include several types of validity, and modern models, which present validity as a single construct. The modern models reorganize classical "validities" into either "aspects" of validity or "types" of validity-supporting evidence

Learning standards (also called academic standards, content standards and curricula) are elements of declarative, procedural, schematic, and strategic knowledge that, as a body, define the specific content of an educational program. Standards are usually composed of statements that express what a student knows, can do, or is capable of performing at a certain point in their "learning progression" (often designated by "grade", "class level", or its equivalent).

Learning standards have multiple uses in a modern education ecosystem. They can be links to content, and they can be part of a learning pathway or progression. Academic standards are the benchmarks of quality and excellence in education such as the rigour of curricula and the difficulty of examinations. The creation of universal academic standards requires agreement on rubrics, criteria or other systems of coding academic achievement. At colleges and universities, faculty are under increasing pressure from administrators to award students good marks and grades without regard for those students' actual abilities, both to keep those students in school paying tuition and to boost the schools' graduation rates. Students often use course evaluations to criticize any instructor who they feel has been making the course too difficult, even if an objective evaluation would show that the course has been too easy. It is very difficult to find a direct correlation between the quality of the course and the outcome of the course evaluations.

An amanuensis (/əˌmænjuˈɛnsɪs/ ə-MAN-yoo-EN-sis) (pl. amanuenses /əˌmænjuˈɛnsiːz/ ə-MAN-yoo-EN-seez) or scribe is a person employed to write or type what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another. It may also be a person who signs a document on behalf of another under the latter's authority.

In some academic contexts, an amanuensis can assist an injured or disabled person in taking written examinations. Eric Fenby acted as such in assisting the blind and paralysed composer Frederick Delius in writing down the notes he dictated.

In science education, a word problem is a mathematical exercise (such as in a textbook, worksheet, or exam) where significant background information on the problem is presented in ordinary language rather than in mathematical notation. As most word problems involve a narrative of some sort, they are sometimes referred to as story problems and may vary in the amount of technical language used.

Academic achievement or academic performance is the extent to which a student, teacher or institution has attained their short or long-term educational goals. Completion of educational benchmarks such as secondary school diplomas and bachelor's degrees represent academic achievement.

Academic achievement is commonly measured through examinations or continuous assessments but there is no general agreement on how it is best evaluated or which aspects are most important—procedural knowledge such as skills or declarative knowledge such as facts. Furthermore, there are inconclusive results over which individual factors successfully predict academic performance, elements such as test anxiety, environment, motivation, and emotions require consideration when developing models of school achievement.

Classical test theory (CTT) is a body of related psychometric theory that predicts outcomes of psychological testing such as the difficulty of items, precision of estimates, or the ability of test-takers. It is a theory of testing based on the idea that a person's observed or obtained score on a test is the sum of a true score (error-free score) and an error score. Generally speaking, the aim of classical test theory is to understand and improve the reliability of psychological tests.

Classical test theory may be regarded as roughly synonymous with true score theory. The term "classical" refers not only to the chronology of these models but also contrasts with the more recent psychometric theories, generally referred to collectively as item response theory, which sometimes bear the appellation "modern" as in "modern latent trait theory".

Diver training is the set of processes through which a person learns the necessary and desirable skills to safely dive underwater within the scope of the diver training standard relevant to the specific training programme. Most diver training follows procedures and schedules laid down in the associated training standard, in a formal training programme, and includes relevant foundational knowledge of the underlying theory, including some basic physics, physiology and environmental information, practical skills training in the selection and safe use of the associated equipment in the specified underwater environment, and assessment of the required skills and knowledge deemed necessary by the certification agency to allow the newly certified diver to dive within the specified range of conditions at an acceptable level of risk. Recognition of prior learning is allowed in some training standards.

Recreational diver training has historically followed two philosophies, based on the business structure of the training agencies. The not-for profit agencies tend to focus on developing the diver's competence in relatively fewer stages, and provide more content over a longer programme, than the for-profit agencies, which maximise profit and customer convenience by providing a larger number of shorter courses with less content and fewer skills per course. The more advanced skills and knowledge, including courses focusing on key diving skills like good buoyancy control and trim, and environmental awareness, are available by both routes, but a large number of divers never progress beyond the entry level certification, and only dive on vacation, a system by which skills are more likely to deteriorate than improve due to long periods of inactivity. This may be mitigated by refresher courses, which tend to target skills particularly important in the specific region, and may focus on low impact diving skills, to protect the environment that the service provider relies on for their economic survival.

The testing, inspection and certification (TIC) sector consists of conformity assessment bodies who provide services ranging from auditing and inspection, to testing, verification, quality assurance and certification. The sector consists of both in-house and outsourced services.