(from a recent announcement from Northstar Digital Literacy)
Based on significant thought and discussion, we have made the decision to allow test takers to complete a given Northstar assessment no more than twice in one day at testing locations. Public visitors to Northstar will be limited to taking assessments once daily from our homepage.
We made this decision because there are instances in which individual test takers complete a given assessment multiple times on one day. Such repeated completions tend to diminish the validity of an assessment over time, as nearly any test or assessment can be ‘gamed’ by completing it repeatedly - individuals figure out how to get a passing score, but don’t really understand the underlying material. The best practice is to use assessments as pre- and post-tests, with a period of instruction in between. This helps ensure that test takers are learning and mastering specific skills. If a test taker completes an assessment twice in one day, there should be some instruction in between completions.
As a result, for proctored sessions, we will also be disallowing retakes during the same proctored session, i.e. the proctor would need to end the proctored mode, provide instruction, and re-enter their proctor PIN to set up a separate proctored session for the user to retake the same assessment.
We're aware that this is a major change in process for some testing locations. However, we feel we need to implement on a technical level what we've always encouraged on a practical, pedagogical level, so that the validity and purpose of Northstar are maintained.
These changes will go into effect at the beginning of September.