The definition of what it means to take a test online continues to evolve with the inclusion of a broader range of item types and a wide array of devices used by students to access test content. To assure the validity and reliability of test scores for all students, device comparability research should be conducted to evaluate the impact of…

Automated essay scoring is a developing technology that can provide efficient scoring of large numbers of written responses. Its use in higher education admissions testing provides an opportunity to collect validity and fairness evidence to support current uses and inform its emergence in other areas such as K-12 large-scale assessment. In this…

Providing appropriate test accommodations to most English language learners (ELLs) is important to facilitate meaningful inferences about learning. This study compared teacher large-scale test accommodation recommendations to those from a literature- and practitioner-grounded accommodation selection taxonomy. The taxonomy links student-specific…

Karabatsos compared the power of 36 person-fit statistics using receiver operating characteristics curves and found the "H[superscript T]" statistic to be the most powerful in identifying aberrant examinees. He found three statistics, "C", "MCI", and "U3", to be the next most powerful. These four statistics,…

Online and on-demand tests are increasingly used in assessment. Although the main focus has been cheating and test security (e.g., Selwyn, 2008) the cross-setting equivalence of scores as a function of contrasting test conditions is also an issue that warrants attention. In this study, the impact of environmental and cognitive distractions, as…

Evidence of comparability is generally needed whenever there are variations in the conditions of an assessment administration, including variations introduced by the administration of an assessment on multiple digital devices (e.g., tablet, laptop, desktop). This article is meant to provide a comprehensive examination of issues relevant to the…

In this study we compared five item selection procedures using three ability estimation methods in the context of a mixed-format adaptive test based on the generalized partial credit model. The item selection procedures used were maximum posterior weighted information, maximum expected information, maximum posterior weighted Kullback-Leibler…

Item response time data were used in investigating the differences in student test-taking behavior between two device conditions: computer and tablet. Analyses were conducted to address the questions of whether or not the device condition had a differential impact on rapid guessing and solution behaviors (with response time effort used as an…

Complex Problem Solving (CPS) is seen as a cross-curricular 21st century skill that has attracted interest in large-scale-assessments. In the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012, CPS was assessed all over the world to gain information on students' skills to acquire and apply knowledge while dealing with nontransparent…

Will subscores provide additional information than what is provided by the total score? Is there a method that can estimate more trustworthy subscores than observed subscores? To answer the first question, this study evaluated whether the true subscore was more accurately predicted by the observed subscore or total score. To answer the second…

This study examines the effects of two test administration accommodations on the mathematics performance of students within the context of a large-scale statewide assessment. The two test administration accommodations were resource guides and calculators. A stratified random sample of schools was selected to represent the demographic…

There have been many studies of the comparability of computer-administered and paper-administered tests. Not surprisingly (given the variety of measurement and statistical sampling issues that can affect any one study) the results of such studies have not always been consistent. Moreover, the quality of computer-based test administration systems…

Various applications of item response theory often require linking to achieve a common scale for item parameter estimates obtained from different groups. This article used a simulation to examine the relative performance of four different item response theory (IRT) linking procedures in a random groups equating design: concurrent calibration with…

This study examined the extent to which the underlying factor structure of the 2005 South Carolina Palmetto Achievement Challenge Tests (PACT) in science for grades 3, 4, and 5 was equivalent for students who were administered the test in a regular (standard) or accommodated form. Three accommodation groups were of interest: students who received…

This article describes a comparative study conducted at the item level for paper and online administrations of a statewide high stakes assessment. The goal was to identify characteristics of items that may have contributed to mode effects. Item-level analyses compared two modes of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) for up to four…