This study investigated and compared the properties of five methods of item exposure control within the purview of estimating examinees' abilities in a computerized adaptive testing (CAT) context. Each of the exposure control algorithms was incorporated into the item selection procedure and the adaptive testing progressed based on the CAT design…

Item parameter estimates vary for a variety of reasons, including estimation error, characteristics of the examinee samples, and context effects (e.g., item location effects, section location effects, etc.). Although we expect variation based on theory, there is reason to believe that observed variation in item parameter estimates exceeds what…

In recent years, educational research and development has focused increased attention on ways of enhancing the instructional value of tests. This ERIC Digest summarizes some of the recent advances in linking instruction and assessment. Studies of teacher effectiveness indicate how important systematic assessment of student progress and use of test…

Test validity is a concept that has often been ignored in the context of latent trait models and in modern test theory, particularly as it relates to computerized adaptive testing. Some considerations about the validity of a test and of a single item are proposed. This paper focuses on measures that are population-free and that will provide local…

The goal of this project was to develop an inexpensive, self-contained system of hardware and software to support the development, administration, and evaluation of computerized adaptive tests. Toward that goal, commercial hardware was selected and a comprehensive software called the MicroCAT Testing System was developed. The MicroCAT system was…

In fall 1987, a study was conducted at Lincoln Land Community College (LLCC) to examine the college's system of basic skills assessment for course placement. The study investigated the adequacy of established cut scores; placement evasion (i.e., the disregarding of a recommendation to take a developmental course) and its consequences; the use of…

This paper contains the technical specifications, schematic diagrams, and program printout for a computer software package for the development and administration of diagnostic tests. The second version of the Diagnostic Testing Package DX consists of a PASCAL-based set of modules located in two main programs: (1) EDITTEST creates, modifies, and…

In this report, selection theory is used as a theoretical framework from which mathematical algorithms for tailored testing are derived. The process of tailored, or adaptive, testing is presented as analogous to personnel selection and rejection on a series of continuous variables that are related to ability. Proceeding from a single common-factor…

Although two-stage testing is not the most efficient form of adaptive testing, it has some advantages. In this paper, linear programming models are given for the construction of two-stage tests. In these models, practical constraints with respect to, among other things, test composition, administration time, and inter-item dependencies play an…

The overall purpose of this research was to compare a maximum likelihood based tailored testing procedure to a Bayesian tailored testing procedure. The results indicated that both tailored testing procedures produced equally reliable ability estimates. Also an analysis of test length indicated that reasonable ability estimates could be obtained…

Tailored testing increases the efficiency of tests by individually selecting for each person a set of items from an item pool so that the difficulty of the items selected will be such as to maximize the information provided by the score. The tailored testing procedure designed by Cliff orders persons and items on a common ordinal scale and…

To reduce the cost of item writing and to enhance the flexibility of item presentation, items can be generated by item-cloning techniques. An important consequence of cloning is that it may cause variability on the item parameters. Therefore, a multilevel item response model is presented in which it is assumed that the item parameters of a…

Score comparability is important to those who take tests and those who use them. One important concept related to test score comparability is that of "equity," which is defined as existing when examinees are indifferent as to which of two alternate forms of a test they would prefer to take. By their nature, computerized adaptive tests…

The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, the description of a research plan for a large-scale computer adaptive testing program migrating from a network to Internet version is presented. The general areas needed in such a research plan include: (1) comparability studies; (2) psychometric analyses; (3) development projects; (4) validity…