In the education and training worlds, the term “assessment” is on everyone's agenda – from classroom instruction to local schools, to on-the-job training, to international comparisons of education, both at high school and college levels. Although the term has technical variations in meaning, the ascriptions of assessment dramatically shift according to the education and training settings in which the terms are used. In the clinical psychology realm, assessment usually denotes the use of specific procedures to examine and interpret patient status as well as the results of these procedures. In the military and in business sectors, assessment applies to a broader range of activities and purposes that can include the evaluation of a program's effectiveness, an individual's productivity, and even the estimate of future status of an entire area, as in “technology assessment.” In this discussion, I will use the term assessment and its functional synonym, “test,” to refer both to (1) the procedures designed and used, and (2) the criteria and judgments made, which together estimate the proficiency of an individual or group with respect to a domain of desired behaviors, achievements, or performances. Assessment procedures within this interpretation may vary with respect to their purposes, design, surface features, methods of analysis, and reporting approaches. They also may explicitly favor uniform or adaptive performance. Assessment can also be used as part of the dependent variables for efforts such as research studies or program evaluations.