In the planning stage–the first step in the item development process–an implementation plan is developed based on the framework. The implementation plan provides guidelines for item development and specifies any necessary additional work, research, or special studies. There are common block structures that we try to achieve with our assessments to allow us to spiral different subjects in the same assessment session. In the planning stage, we must determine how many items and blocks of items are needed to operationalize the framework objectives, how long the assessment will take, and how various combinations of these blocks will be spiraled.
Inventory and evaluation of the current item pool determine the development of new items.