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The Dutch Committee on Tests and Testing (COTAN) aims at improving test use and test quality in the Netherlands. Improving test use is done by raising standards in the use of psychological tests. Improving test quality is done by assessing the quality of different psychological instruments that are available for professional use in the Netherlands. This is done along the Dutch Rating System for Test Quality (Evers, Lucassen, Meijer, & Sijtsma, 2010). The reviews inform test users about the quality of available instruments and provide feedback to test developers about the quality of their products.

The COTAN has noted several (psychometric) developments in test construction and test practice, that influence their work. In this presentation we would like to highlight two of those developments, that could be of interest for both research and practice.

In the last few years more and more instruments that use a continuous norming procedure are submitted for reviewing. However, a lot of different (types of) models can be used and also the literature on the topic is still inconclusive, which makes it difficult to come up with uniform guidelines to review its quality. We will talk about the different groups of models that are used and what kind of information the COTAN uses to assess the quality of the norming procedure.

Furthermore, due to focus on Routine Outcome Monitoring (ROM) in the mental health care as an evaluative tool for quality assessment, it is important to know more about the consequences of repeated measures on the psychometric properties of the instrument and what can be expected with different patient groups. We will discuss some issues we think should be addressed and considered, when assessing test quality of instruments that are used for ROM.