Acquiescence is the tendency of participants to shift their responses to agreement. Lechner et al. (2019) introduced the following mechanisms of acquiescence: social deference and cognitive processing. We added their interaction into a theoretical framework. The sample consists of 557 participants. We found significant medium strong relationship…

Score equity assessment (SEA) refers to an examination of population invariance of equating across two or more subpopulations of test examinees. Previous SEA studies have shown that score equity may be present for examinees scoring at particular test score ranges but absent for examinees scoring at other score ranges. No studies to date have…

This study reports on an Evidence Centered Design (ECD) project in the Netherlands, involving the theory exam for prospective car drivers. In particular, we illustrate how cognitive load theory, task-analysis, response process models, and explanatory item-response theory can be used to systematically develop and refine task models. Based on a…

This study investigated the effects of linking potentially multidimensional test forms using the fixed item parameter calibration. Forms had equal or unequal total test difficulty with and without confounding difficulty. The mean square errors and bias of estimated item and ability parameters were compared across the various confounding tests. The…

The relationship of expected and actual difficulty of items on six mathematics question papers designed for 16-year olds in England was investigated through paired comparison using experts and testing with students. A variant of the Rasch model was applied to the comparison data to establish a scale of expected difficulty. In testing, the papers…

Contextualized items have been widely used in science testing. Despite common use of item contexts, how the influence of a chosen context on the reliability and validity of the score inferences remains unclear. We focused on sequential cues of contextual information, referring to the order of events or descriptions presented in item contexts. We…

We examined multimodality (the representation of information in multiple semiotic modes) in the context of international test comparisons. Using Program of International Student Assessment (PISA)-2009 data, we examined the correlation of the difficulty of science items and the complexity of their illustrations. We observed statistically…

Research shows that test method can exert a significant impact on test takers' performance and thereby contaminate test scores. We argue that common test method can exert the same effect as common stimuli and violate the conditional independence assumption of item response theory models because, in general, subsets of items which have a shared…

This study investigated whether the linguistic complexity of items leads to gender differential item functioning (DIF) on mathematics assessments. Two forms of a mathematics test were developed. The first form consisted of algebra items based on mathematical expressions, terms, and equations. In the second form, the same items were written as word…

Throughout the world, cut scores are an important aspect of a high-stakes testing program because they are a key operational component of the interpretation of test scores. One method for setting standards that is prevalent in educational testing programs--the Bookmark method--is intended to be a less cognitively complex alternative to methods…

The traditional approach to scale modified-Angoff cut scores transfers the raw cuts to an existing raw-to-scale score conversion table. Under the traditional approach, cut scores and conversion table raw scores are not only seen as interchangeable but also as originating from a common scaling process. In this article, we propose an alternative…

This investigation examined whether different rates of rapid guessing between groups could lead to detectable levels of differential item functioning (DIF) in situations where the item parameters were the same for both groups. Two simulation studies were designed to explore this possibility. The groups in Study 1 were simulated to reflect…

As a construct definition, the current study develops a cognitive model describing the knowledge, skills, and abilities measured by critical reading test items on a high-stakes assessment used for selection decisions in the United States. Additionally, in order to establish generalizability of the construct meaning to other similarly structured…

This study investigates the effect of reporting the unadjusted raw scores in a high-stakes language exam when raters differ significantly in severity and self-selected questions differ significantly in difficulty. More sophisticated models, introducing meaningful facets and parameters, are successively used to investigate the characteristics of…

When a test is adapted from a source language (SL) into a target language (TL), the two forms are usually not psychometrically equivalent. If linking between test forms is necessary, those items that have had their psychometric characteristics altered by the translation (differential item functioning [DIF] items) should be eliminated from the…