The Relevance of Messick's Four Faces for Understanding the Validity of High-Stakes Assessments

In a quiet but profound way, the work of Samuel Messick (1988, 1989, 1994, 1995) has revolutionized how we think about valid assessment procedures. His early writings probed the meaning of test reliability and validity in terms of classic psychometric theory. His later writings challenged us to radically shift from classic notions of test psychometrics to an expanded view of valid assessments.