József Nagy’s role in the development of educational assessment in Hungary

Abstract

At the beginning of the 1970s, József Nagy started research work related to the pedagogical application of tests in Hungary, and in the following half century he managed decisive projects in all areas of educational evaluation. His first works were related to primary school, with the development of the tests assessing counting skills and built an item bank for mathematical word problems. Already with these early works, he introduced many new elements of empirical educational research, including nationally representative sampling, inclusion of a wide range of social background variables in data collection and visualization to communicating the results. Furthermore, he applied the statistical methods of test analysis. This was followed by the development of a system of standardized tests that fully covered the knowledge of the most important subjects of lower secondary grades, the results of which were published in 17 volumes. The development of the test system for solving the assessment problems of the kindergarten-school transition was based on an extensive survey. As a result, the PREFER and the DIFER test packages, which are still used today, were completed. He considered feedback as the basic task of measuring devices, which lays the foundation for compensating the revealed deficiencies. He also outlined the principles of measurement-based development and, with involvement of co-authors, created a wide range of developmental systems related to DIFER.