Self-efficacy is one's belief in one's capacity to organize and execute a course of action and serves as a motivating factor, since people tend to seek opportunities in areas where they feel efficacious and avoid areas where they believe they might fail (Bandura, 1997). Furthermore, as language learners' feelings of efficacy increase, so does the…

Testing in educational system perform a number of functions, the results from a test can be used to make a number of decisions in education. It is therefore well accepted in the education literature that, testing is an important element of education. To effectively utilize the tests in educational policies and quality assurance its validity and…

The importance of spatial ability for success in a variety of domains, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), is widely acknowledged. Yet, students with high spatial ability are rarely identified, as Talent Searches for academically talented students focus on identifying high mathematical and verbal abilities.…

A directly applicable latent variable modeling procedure for classical item analysis is outlined. The method allows one to point and interval estimate item difficulty, item correlations, and item-total correlations for composites consisting of categorical items. The approach is readily employed in empirical research and as a by-product permits…

To rule out the need for a two-parameter item response theory (IRT) model during item analysis by Rasch models, it is important to check the Rasch model's assumption that all items have the same item discrimination. Biserial and polyserial correlation coefficients measuring the association between items and restscores are often used in an informal…

Correlations between self-reported learning gains and direct, longitudinal measures that ostensibly correspond in content area are generally inadequate. This chapter clarifies that self-reported measures of learning are more properly used and interpreted as evidence of students' perceived learning and affective outcomes. In this context, the…

The Inviting School Survey-Revised (ISS-R) was adapted and translated into Traditional Chinese (ISS-RC), using a five-step process, based on international test administration guidelines, involving judgmental, logical, and empirical methods. Both versions were administered to a convenience sample of Chinese-English fluent Hong Kong school community…

Interest development is not an easily studied process. There are at least 4 methods for examining the process of stability and change over time: relative stability, absolute stability, profile stability, and structural stability. A program of research that focuses on examining these 4 types of stability is summarized relative to the issues…

A process for judging the alignment between curriculum standards and assessments developed by the author is presented. This process produces information on the relationship of standards and assessments on four alignment criteria: Categorical Concurrence, Depth of Knowledge Consistency, Range of Knowledge Correspondence, and Balance of…

A computer program which creates and stores a cumulative item covariance matrix upon each administration of an instrument is described. Use of this program would facilitate keeping a constant log on reliability in situations in which the test is administered to different groups over a period of time. (Author/JKS)

A strategy for the pairwise assessment which may be used to evaluate the nature of both "prerequisite" and "transference" relations existing among a set of traits is presented. Both confirmatory and exploratory strategies are presented. An example of how the strategy would be used is presented in the exploratory context.…

The computer program WEIGAN makes the weighted G analysis available for computer users. The input and output of the program are described. (Author/JKS)

Social constructivist theories of race suggest no two measures of race will capture the same information, but the degree of "error" this creates for quantitative research on inequality is unclear. Using unique data from the General Social Survey, I find observed and self-reported measures of race yield substantively different results when used to…

Recent assessment research joining cognitive psychology and psychometric theory has introduced a new technology, item generation. In algorithmic item generation, items are systematically created based on specific combinations of features that underlie the processing required to correctly solve a problem. Reading comprehension items have been more…