Selecting undergraduate majors or specializations is a crucial decision for students since it considerably impacts their educational and career paths. Moreover, their decisions should match their academic background, interests, and goals to pursue their passions and discover various career paths with motivation. However, such a decision remains…

In low-stakes assessment settings, students' performance is not only influenced by students' ability level but also their test-taking engagement. In computerized adaptive tests (CATs), disengaged responses (e.g., rapid guesses) that fail to reflect students' true ability levels may lead to the selection of less informative items and thereby…

Many arguments have been made against allowing examinees to review and change their answers after completing a computer adaptive test (CAT). These arguments include: (1) increased bias; (2) decreased precision; and (3) susceptibility of test-taking strategies. Results of simulations suggest that the strength of these arguments is reduced or…

Studied item exposure in a computerized adaptive test when the item selection algorithm presents examinees with questions they were asked in a previous test administration. Results with 178 repeat examinees on a medical technologists' test indicate that the combined use of an adaptive algorithm to select items and latent trait theory to estimate…

The absence of suitable external criteria is a recurrent problem for test, battery, and inventory developers in selecting items or tests for inclusion in final operational instruments. This report presents a computing algorithm developed for use when no adequate external selection criterion is available. The algorithm uses a multiple linear…

This paper proposes a new Information-Time index as the basis for item selection in computerized classification testing (CCT) and investigates how this new item selection algorithm can help improve test efficiency for item pools with mixed item types. It also investigates how practical constraints such as item exposure rate control, test…

An item-selection algorithm to neutralize the differential effects of time limits on scores on computerized adaptive tests is proposed. The method is based on a statistical model for the response-time distributions of the examinees on items in the pool that is updated each time a new item has been administered. Predictions from the model are used…

Two iterative procedures for constructing Rasch scales are presented. A log-likelihood ratio test based on a quasi-loglinear formulation of the Rasch model is given by which one item at a time can be deleted from or added to an initial item set. In the so-called "top-down" algorithm, items are stepwise deleted from a relatively large…

Discusses the design of multiversion information retrieval systems and provides a theoretical justification for the necessity of creating such systems to perform an optimal search for the user's information needs. Topics discussed include comparing query formulations; feedback algorithms; an experiment with a test collection; and the mechanism of…

Four discussions of test construction based on item response theory (IRT) are presented. The first discussion, "Test Design as Model Building in Mathematical Programming" (T. J. J. M. Theunissen), presents test design as a decision process under certainty. A natural way of modeling this process leads to mathematical programming. General…