The New York City Department of Education's (DOE) annual survey of parents, students, and teachers is the largest of its kind in the United States. The DOE relies on the survey to identify schools' strengths and to target areas for improvement. School Survey scores, along with attendance, are also the only non-academic indicators used in the DOE's…

The 2012 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education was designed to provide up-to-date information and to identify trends in the areas of teacher background and experience, curriculum and instruction, and the availability and use of instructional resources. This compendium, one of a series, details the results of a survey of high school…

The 2012 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education was designed to provide up-to-date information and to identify trends in the areas of teacher background and experience, curriculum and instruction, and the availability and use of instructional resources. This compendium, one of a series, details the results of a survey of high school…

Previous studies have indicated that the reliability of test scores composed of testlets might be overestimated by conventional item-based reliability estimation methods (R. Thorndike, 1953; A. Anastasi, 1988; S. Sireci, D. Thissen, and H. Wainer, 1991; H. Wainer and D. Thissen, 1996). This study used generalizability theory to investigate the…

The purpose of the study was to compare reliability estimates for a test composed of stimulus-dependent testlets as derived from item scores, testlet scores, and under the univariate generalizability theory and multivariate generalizability theory designs, as well as to determine the influence of the number of testlets and the number of items per…

A version of sequential mastery testing is studied in which response behavior is modeled by an item response theory (IRT) model. First, a general theoretical framework is sketched that is based on a combination of Bayesian sequential decision theory and item response theory. A discussion follows on how IRT based sequential mastery testing can be…

The effects of skewed theta distributions on indices of differential item functioning (DIF) were studied, comparing Mantel Haenszel (N. Mantel and W. Haenszel, 1959) and DFIT (N. S. Raju, W. J. van der Linden, and P. F. Fleer) (noncompensatory DIF). The significance of the study is that in educational and psychological data, the distributions one…

This handbook explains how to do Rasch measurement. The emphasis is on practice, but theoretical explanations are also provided. The Forward contains an introduction to the topic of Rasch measurement. Chapters 2, 4, 5, and 7 use a small problem to illustrate the application of Rasch measurement in detail, and methodological issues are considered…

The Test of Spoken English (TSE) is an internationally administered instrument for assessing nonnative speakers' proficiency in speaking English. The research foundation of the TSE examination described in its manual refers to two sources of variation other than the achievement being measured: interrater reliability and internal consistency.…

The purposes of this study were to introduce the iterative purification procedure and to compare this with the two-step purification procedure, to compare false positive error rates and the power of five observed score approaches and to identify factors affecting power and false positive rates in each method. This study used 2,400 data sets that…

Large gains in scores have been observed over the first years of the Kentucky Instructional Results Information System (KIRIS) program. The extent to which these gains in scores indicate that student learning improved was evaluated. Previous studies have suggested that KIRIS score gains might be appreciably inflated, something that might result…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) collects data in the form of repeated, discrete measures (test items) with hierarchical structure for both measures and subjects, that is complex by any standard. This complexity has been managed through a "divide and conquer" approach of isolating and evaluating sources of…

The Personal Preferences Self-Description Questionnaire (PPSDQ) (B. Thompson) was developed to measure personal preferences with regard to Jungian psychological types. Instruments in this area are among the most popular measures used in education and psychology; the measures are used in matching teaching and learning styles, in individual…

Often, educational and psychological measurement instruments must be translated from one language to another when they are administered to different cultural groups. The translation process often necessarily introduces measurement inequivalence. Therefore, an examination may be said to exhibit differential functioning if the test provides a…

Three new computer-administered item types for the analytical scale of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) General Test were developed and evaluated. One item type was a free-response version of the current analytical reasoning item type. The second item type was a somewhat constrained free-response version of the pattern identification (or…