Purpose: There is an increase globally of students using technology to support their learning. The purpose of this paper is to outline the technical aspects of adaptive learning and contribute to the development of pedagogy that incorporates this method in teaching and learning. Design/methodology/approach: This is a technical review article that…

A fundamental assumption in computerized adaptive testing is that item parameters are invariant with respect to context--items surrounding the administered item. This assumption, however, may not hold in forced-choice (FC) assessments, where explicit comparisons are made between items included in the same block. We empirically examined the…

Background: Although on-demand testing is being increasingly used in many areas of assessment, it has not been adopted in high stakes examinations like the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) and General Certificate of Education Advanced level (GCE A level) offered by awarding organisations (AOs) in the UK. One of the major issues…

Despite the current need for reliable and valid test instruments in different countries in order to monitor the sign language acquisition of deaf children, very few tests are commercially available that offer strong evidence for their psychometric properties. This mirrors the current state of affairs for many sign languages, where very little…

The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) has been planned as an ongoing program of assessment. The first cycle of the assessment has involved two "rounds." The first round, which is covered by this report, took place over the period of January 2008-October 2013. The main features of the first cycle of…

The recent National Students Survey showed that feedback to students was an ongoing problem in Higher Education. This paper reports on the extension of our past research into the provision of automated feedback for objective testing. In the research presented here, the system has been further developed for marking practical and essay questions and…

This research investigated whether features of examination questions influence students with dyslexia differently to others, potentially affecting whether they have a fair opportunity to show their knowledge, understanding and skills. A number of science examination questions were chosen. For some questions two slightly different versions were…

We present principles for the design of an online system to support computer algebra enabled questions for use within the teaching and learning of mathematics in higher education. The introduction of a computer algebra system (CAS) into a computer aided assessment (CAA) system affords sophisticated response processing of student provided answers.…

Presents a system of classification for describing computer-based assessment techniques based on the level of action and educational activity they offer. Illustrates 10 computer-based assessment techniques and discusses their educational value. Contains 14 references. (Author)

This paper presents ongoing research at the University of Hertfordshire on the use of computer-adaptive tests (CATs) in Higher Education. A software prototype based on Item Response Theory has been developed and is described here. This application was designed to estimate the level of proficiency in English for those students whose first language…