n. the equitable treatment of test takers in order to eliminate systematic variance in outcome scores among people with different racial or cultural experiences and other background influences. Fundamentally a sociocultural (rather than a technical) issue, fairness is a broad area encompassing quality management in test design, administration, and scoring; adequate coverage of relevant content; sufficient work to establish construct validity; equal learning opportunities and access to testing; and items measuring only the skill or ability under investigation without being unduly influenced by construct-irrelevant variance introduced through test-taker background factors. See also culture-fair test.