Plausible Values

         Education assessments can have two major purposes:          1. To measure the knowledge and skills of particular students. The performance of each student usually will have an impact on his or her future (school career, admission to post-secondary education, and so on). It is therefore particularly important to minimise the measurement error associated with each individual’s estimate.          2. To assess the knowledge or skills of a population. The performance of individuals will have no impact on their school career or professional life. In such a case, the goal of reducing error in making inferences about the target population is more important than the goal of reducing errors at the individual level.       