As highlighted in the literature, one of the main difficulties in mathematics is the management of different semiotic representations. This difficulty occurs in verticals throughout schooling and is often an obstacle to the proper learning process of mathematics. The present study aims to investigate the different facets of these difficulties with…

Collaborative problem solving (CPS) is inherently an interactive, conjoint, dual-strand process that considers how a student reasons about a problem as well as how s/he interacts with others to regulate social processes and exchange information (OECD, 2013). Measuring CPS skills presents a challenge for obtaining consistent, accurate, and reliable…

GCSE examinations (taken by students aged 16 years in England) are not intended to be speeded (i.e. to be partly a test of how quickly students can answer questions). However, there has been little research exploring this. The aim of this research was to explore the speededness of past GCSE written examinations, using only the data from scored…

The present paper questions the content validity of the eight creativity-related self-report scales available in PISA 2022's context questionnaire and provides a set of considerations for researchers interested in using these indexes. Specifically, we point out some threats to the content validity of these scales (e.g., "creative thinking…

This article proposes a class of cognitive diagnosis models (CDMs) for polytomously scored items with different link functions. Many existing polytomous CDMs can be considered as special cases of the proposed class of polytomous CDMs. Simulation studies were carried out to investigate the feasibility of the proposed CDMs and the performance of…

Creativity tests, like creativity itself, vary widely in their structure and use. These differences include instructions, test duration, environments, prompt and response modalities, and the structure of test items. A key factor is task structure, referring to the specificity of the number of responses requested for a given prompt. Classic…

This article presents preliminary analysis of a test item in a large-scale study design to promote the development of geometric reasoning progression. Two sets of data were analysed to validate the item designed to assess secondary school students' knowledge of a rectangle. The first data set involved 155 Year 4-10 students from seven trial…

In Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), item response theory (IRT) scaling is used to examine the psychometric properties of items and scales and to provide comparable test scores across participating countries and over time. To balance the comparability of IRT item parameter estimations across countries with the best possible…

Covariational reasoning (or the coordination of two dynamically changing quantities) is central to secondary STEM subjects, but research has yet to fully explore its applicability to elementary and middle-grade levels within various STEM fields. To address this need, we selected a globally referenced STEM assessment--the Trends in International…

In large-scale low-stake assessment such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), students may skip items (missingness) which are within their ability to complete. The detection and taking care of these noneffortful responses, as a measure of test-taking motivation, is an important issue in modern psychometric models.…

Changes in the economy and society lead to a growing necessity of financial education. In this context, we investigate the approaches to financial education in secondary schools in the United States and Germany. We seek to answer the question if and how the implementation of financial education is similar and different between the two countries.…

Since 2000, the PISA test implemented by OECD has become the prime benchmark for international comparisons in education. The 2015 PISA edition introduced methodological changes that altered the nature of its results. PISA made no longer valid non-reached items of the final part of the test, assuming that those unanswered questions were more a…

The State of Washington requires school districts to file court petitions on students with excessive unexcused absences. The "Washington Assessment of Risks and Needs of Students" (WARNS), a self-report screening instrument developed for use by high school and juvenile court personnel in such situations, purports to measure six facets of…

This paper describes and evaluates a multistage adaptive testing (MSAT) design that was implemented for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 main survey for the major domain of Reading. Through a simulation study, recovery of item response theory model parameters and measurement precision were examined. The PISA 2018 MSAT…

In this article, the authors applied profile analysis to Maths exam data to demonstrate how different exam forms, differing in difficulty and length, can be reported and easily interpreted. The results were presented for different groups of participants and for different institutions in different Maths domains by evaluating the balance. Some…