SOLICITATION NOTICE
R -- Psychometrician Services
- Notice Date
- 3/1/2007
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- NAICS
- 541618
— Other Management Consulting Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Education, Federal Student Aid, FSA Acquisitions, Union Center Plaza, RM 91F1 830 First Street, NE, Washington, DC, 20202-5405, UNITED STATES
- ZIP Code
- 00000
- Solicitation Number
- EDOFSA-07-000232
- Response Due
- 3/12/2007
- Archive Date
- 3/27/2007
- Small Business Set-Aside
- Total Small Business
- Description
- This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in FAR Subpart 12.603, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement requests quotations and constitutes the only solicitation; a paper solicitation will not be issued. The solicitation will be distributed solely through the Government-Wide Point of Entry, www.fedbizopps.gov. Request for Quotation number EDOFSA-07-000232 shall be referenced on any quotation. This solicitation is being issued under the Simplified Acquisition Procedures (SAP) as a Small Business Set-Aside. The NAICS code is 541618 with a small business size of $6.5 million. All future information about this acquisition, including solicitation amendments, will also be distributed solely through this site. Interested parties are responsible for monitoring this site to ensure that they have the most up-to-date information about this acquisition. This contract action will result in multiple Firm Fixed Price Purchase Orders. The Department of Education, Federal Student Aid, is seeking qualified psychometricians to determine whether certain tests developed by test publishers meet basic test standards. The tests to be reviewed will be used to determine federal student aid eligibility for a student who does not have a high school diploma or its equivalent. By law, such a student may still be eligible for a grant or loan if he or she can demonstrate the "ability to benefit" from the training offered by a postsecondary institution. The Department will select experts in the field of education testing and assessment, who possess appropriate advanced degrees and experience in test development or psychometric research, to determine whether a test meets the requirements for test approval. We are required to hire psychometricians to review tests to ensure the tests meet the standards delineated in the regulations--34 CFR 668, Subpart J. The Statement of Work at the end of this notice has further information on the standards. No travel would be required. Two psychometricians will review each test separately. The two psychometricians will then confer (via telephone, email, etc.) and submit a joint list of comments and questions to the Department of Education representative (through email). The Department of Education representative will forward this list to the test publisher for their consideration and comments, and then return the publisher's response back to both psychometricians to work through any remaining issues. Once all issues have been resolved, the final deliverable is a statement from the psychometricians indicating either the approval or disapproval of the test. If disapproved, the psychometricians would need to provide a detailed explanation for recommending denial, along with the specific steps the publisher would need to take in order to obtain approval. The tests the Department of Education needs to have reviewed average about 200 pages of test materials and supporting documentation. In the past, the average time for the work involved has been about 18 hours per test. The tests requiring review have been approved before - they are not new tests. But in accordance with the regulations, every five years, they must be renewed through another review process. The tests must be normed with a contemporary population representative of persons who are beyond the age of compulsory school attendance in the United States. The current approval for these tests will not expire until this review process is completed. The Government intends to issue multiple orders for the above services to the responsible vendors whose quotes conform to this solicitation and is determined to be the best value to the Government. The following factors shall be used to evaluate quotes: (1) technical (qualifications, knowledge, degrees/expertise), (2) past performance (test review experience), and (3) price. Technical and past performance combined are more important than price, but as technical and past performance evaluations converge price becomes more important. The contracting officer will determine if any difference in technical/past performance warrants a difference in price. The evaluation will be based on information provided by the vendor in his/her quote, which shall include pricing information. The Government is not responsible for locating or securing any information that is not identified in the quotation, but may do so at its discretion. Quoters shall submit at least two references for evaluation of past performance of same or similar services, which have been successfully completed by the quoter within the past two (2) years. Please carefully review the commercial item clauses for information about requirements and instructions for submitting a quotation. The following provisions and clauses apply to this procurement: Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) provision 52.212-1, Instructions to Offeror - Commercial Items (Sept 2006); FAR provision 52.212-2, Evaluation-Commercial Items (Jan 1999)- Award will be made to the responsible offerors whose offers are considered to be most advantageous to the Government using the evaluation factors as referenced above. The Government reserves the right to award without discussions; FAR provision 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certification-Commercial Items (Nov 2006) - all offerors shall include a completed copy of this provision with their quote; FAR clause 52-212-4, Contract Terms and Conditions - Commercial Items (Feb 2007); FAR clause 52.212-5, Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders-Commercial Items (Nov 2006) - in paragraph (b) the following clauses apply: FAR 52.219-6 and 52.232-33. Clauses incorporated by reference may be accessed in full text at http://www.arnet.gov. All quotes from responsible sources will be considered. Quotes will only be accepted electronically and are to be submitted to Deborah.Wrabley@ed.gov. No other method of submission will be accepted. The deadline for quotes is Monday, March 12, 2007 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Quotes shall include pricing per test review. Please note that awards can only be made to offerors who have an active registration in the CCR database at the time of award. Offerors may obtain information on registration and annual confirmation requirements via the internet at http://www.ccr.gov or by calling 1-888-227-2423 or 269-961-5757. STATEMENT OF WORK The U.S Department of Education is seeking qualified psychometricians to determine whether certain tests developed by test publishers meet basic test standards. The tests to be reviewed will be used to determine federal student aid eligibility for a student who does not have a high school diploma or its equivalent. By law, such a student may still be eligible for a grant or loan if he or she can demonstrate the "ability to benefit" from the training offered by a postsecondary institution. The Department will select experts in the field of education testing and assessment, who possess appropriate advanced degrees and experience in test development or psychometric research, to determine whether the test meets the requirements for test approval. A. In reviewing the tests, experts selected by the Department will review the applications submitted by test publishers to ensure the tests -- 1. Assess secondary school level basic verbal and quantitative skills and general learned abilities; 2. Sample the major content domains of secondary school level verbal and quantitative skills with sufficient numbers of questions to adequately represent each domain; and permit meaningful analyses of item-level performance by students who are representative of the contemporary population beyond the age of compulsory school attendance and have earned a high school diploma; 3. Require appropriate test-taking time to permit adequate sampling of the major content domains; 4. Have all forms (including short forms) comparable in reliability; 5. If the test is revised, have new scales, scale values, and scores that are demonstrably comparable to the old scales, scale values, and scores; 6. Meet all primary and applicable conditional and secondary standards for test construction provided in the 1985 edition of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, with amendments dated June 2, 1989, prepared by a joint committee of the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Council on Measurement. 7. Have publisher's guidelines for retesting, including time between test-taking, be based on empirical analyses that are part of the studies of test reliability. B. Before recommending approval test experts must verify the publisher's application: 1. Includes a test booklet or package with clear, specific, and complete instructions for test administration, as well as information for test takers on the purpose, timing, and scoring of the test; and sample questions representative of the content and average difficulty of the test; 2. Contains two or more secure, equated, alternate forms of the test; 3. Provides tables of distributions of test scores which clearly indicate the mean score and standard deviation for high school graduates who have taken the test within three years prior to the date on that the test is submitted to the Secretary for approval; 4. Displays the distribution of test scores for each edition, form, level, sub-test, or partial battery, for which approval is sought, to ensure the passing score is one deviation below the mean for students with high school diplomas who have taken the test within three years before the date on which the test is submitted to the Department of Education. 5. Norms the test with groups that were of sufficient size to produce defensible standard errors of the mean and were not disproportionately composed of any race or gender; and a contemporary population representative of persons who are beyond the usual age of compulsory school attendance in the United States; and 6. If test batteries include sub-tests assessing different verbal and/or quantitative skills, a distribution of test scores as described in paragraph 3 that allows the Secretary to prescribe either a passing score for each sub-test; or one composite passing score for verbal skills and one composite passing score for quantitative skills. C. Test experts must also verify an application contains sufficient documentation to support the test publisher?s claims. The test experts will verify and review: 1.Documentation of test development, including a history of the test's use; 2. Norming data and other evidence used in determining the distribution of test scores; 3. Material that defines the content domains addressed by the test; 4. For tests first published five years or more before the date submitted to the Secretary for review and approval, documentation of periodic reviews of the content and specifications of the test to ensure that the test continues to reflect secondary school level verbal and quantitative skills; 5. If a test has been revised from the most recent edition approved by the Secretary, an analysis of the revisions, including the reasons for the revisions, the implications of the revisions for the comparability of scores on the current test to scores on the previous test, and data from validity studies of the test undertaken subsequent to the revisions. 6. A description of the manner in which test-taking time was determined in relation to the content representativeness requirements in paragraph A.1 above, and an analysis of the effects of time on performance; 7. A technical manual that includes an explanation of the methodology and procedures for measuring the reliability of the test; evidence that different forms of the test, including, if applicable, short forms, are comparable in reliability; other evidence demonstrating that the test permits consistent assessment of individual skill and ability; documentation of the level of difficulty of the test; unambiguous scales and scale values so that standard errors of measurement can be used to determine statistically significant differences in performance; and additional guidance on the interpretation of scores resulting from any modifications of the tests for persons with documented disabilities. 8. The technical manual must also include evidence that the test was normed using groups that were of sufficient size to produce defensible standard errors of the mean and were not disproportionately composed of any race or gender; and a contemporary population representative of persons who are beyond the usual age of compulsory school attendance in the United States; 9. An analysis of the item-content of each edition, form, level, and (if applicable) sub-test to demonstrate compliance with the required secondary school level criterion. 10. The description of retesting procedures and the analysis upon which the criteria for retesting are based.
- Record
- SN01241514-W 20070303/070301220401 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
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