Large-scale standardized tests are regularly used to measure student achievement overall and for student subgroups. These uses assume tests provide comparable measures of outcomes across student subgroups, but prior research suggests score comparisons across gender groups may be complicated by the type of test items used. This paper presents…

The study examined the relationship between examinees' test-taking effort and their accuracy rate on items from the PISA 2015 assessment. The 10% normative threshold method was applied on Science multiple-choice items in the Cyprus sample to detect rapid guessing behavior. Results showed that the extent of rapid guessing across simple and complex…

The aim of this study is to determine the level of achievement of students participating in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003 and PISA 2012 tests in Turkey according to questions in the mathematical literacy test. This study is a descriptive survey. Within the scope of the study, the mathematical literacy test items were…

The current study explores students' collaboration and problem solving (CPS) abilities using a human-to-agent (H-A) computer-based collaborative problem solving assessment. Five CPS assessment units with 76 conversation-based items were constructed using the PISA 2015 CPS framework. In the experiment, 53,855 ninth and tenth graders in Taiwan were…

Improving the proficiency in mathematical literacy is one of the efforts to improve the human resources quality. Its development describes the students' strengths and weaknesses to support the improvement. The research tried to describe the development of students' proficiency in mathematical literacy, based on the school level and the students'…

One major issue with large-scale assessments is that the respondents might give no responses to many items, resulting in less accurate estimations of both assessed abilities and item parameters. This report studies how the types of items affect the item-level nonresponse rates and how different methods of treating item-level nonresponses have an…

Research on predictors of achievement in science is often targeted on more traditional content-based assessments and single student characteristics. At the same time, the development of skills in the field of scientific inquiry constitutes a focal point of interest for science education. Against this background, the purpose of this study was to…

The aim of this study was to improve the criterion-related test score interpretation of a text-based assessment of scientific reasoning competencies in higher education by evaluating factors which systematically affect item difficulty. To provide evidence about the specific demands which test items of various difficulty make on pre-service…

New assessments that measure deeper learning--whether students understand challenging content and are able to apply that knowledge to think critically, solve problems, communicate their understanding, and work with their peers--are essential if students are to develop the competencies they need to succeed in an increasingly complex world. Such…

The purpose of this research was to determine the effect of formative testing and self-directed learning on mathematics learning outcomes. The research was conducted at an elementary school in central Jakarta during the 2014/2015 school year. Seventy-two fourth-grade students who were selected using random sampling participated in this study. Data…

The present study examined whether observed differences in naturally occurring classroom instruction of reading comprehension strategies were reflected in students' independent use of strategies to comprehend expository text. Based on a descriptive classroom study in 4 ninth-grade language arts classrooms, participants were divided into two groups…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of Herrmann Whole Brain Teaching Method over conventional teaching method on eight graders in their understanding of simple electric circuits in Jordan. Participants (N = 273 students; M = 139, F = 134) were randomly selected from Bani Kenanah region-North of Jordan and randomly assigned to…

To design a series of assessments that could be used to compare the learning gains of high school students studying the cardiopulmonary system using traditional methods to those who used a collaborative computer simulation, called "Mr. Vetro". Five teachers and 264 HS biology students participated in the study. The students were in…

This study uses PISA cycle 3 field trial data to investigate the relationships between gender differential item functioning (DIF) across countries and test languages for science items and their formats and the four other dimensions defined in PISA framework: focus, context, competency, and scientific knowledge. The data used were collected from 60…

As the ongoing national indicator of what American students know and can do, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Reading regularly collects achievement information on representative samples of students in grades 4, 8, and 12. Through "The Nation's Report Card," the NAEP Reading Assessment reports how well students…