When Is Classroom Assessment Educational Measurement?

Abstract The relationship between classroom assessment and educational measurement has been under discussion for some time. This article uses the TISM framework ( Theory, Instrumentation, Scales and units , and Modeling ) to clarify which aspects of classroom assessment are educational measurement (e.g., a grade on a performance assessment keyed to a learning standard) and which are not (e.g., extended elaborated feedback on that same assessment). We conclude that classroom assessment which produces ordinal or interval‐level quantitative scores—by whatever name they are called, including scores, grades, and performance levels—is educational measurement because it implicates theory, instrumentation, scales and units, and modeling of error. On this basis, we claim that work in classroom assessment and educational measurement can and should be mutually informative.