To analyze test item and person interactions according to the Rasch Model, 822 incoming community college freshman were administered the New Jersey Basic Skills Placement Test. The Logical Relationships and Elementary Algebra subtests were chosen to examine the effect of differing average item difficulty on descriptions of fit statistics and on…

A tailored testing model employing the beta distribution, whose mean equals the difficulty of an item and whose variance is approximately equal to the sampling variance of the item difficulty, and employing conditional item difficulties, is proposed. The model provides a procedure by which a minimum number of items of a test, consisting of a set…

Replicating a 1978 study of methods of setting cut-off scores in standardized tests for student placement, the Rasch model was used to estimate ability levels and item difficulty for use in determining the probability of course success. Community college students were administered the New Jersey College Basic Skills Placement Tests and items were…