When there are no personal consequences associated with test performance for examinees, rapid guessing (RG) is a concern and can differ between subgroups. To date, the impact of differential RG on item-level measurement invariance has received minimal attention. To that end, a simulation study was conducted to examine the robustness of the…

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,…

The purpose of the current investigation was to describe how the artificial neural networks (ANNs) can be used to interpret student performance on cognitive diagnostic assessments (CDAs) and evaluate the performances of ANNs using simulation results. CDAs are designed to measure student performance on problem-solving tasks and provide useful…

Computer simulation and animation (CSA) has been receiving growing attention and wide application in engineering education in recent years. A new interactive CSA module was developed in the present study to improve student learning of particle kinetics in an undergraduate engineering dynamics course. The unique feature of this CSA module is that…

In recent guidelines for fair educational testing it is advised to check the validity of individual test scores through the use of person-fit statistics. For practitioners it is unclear on the basis of the existing literature which statistic to use. An overview of relatively simple existing nonparametric approaches to identify atypical response…

There has been much research and discussion on the principles of standards-based grading, and there is a growing consensus of best practice. Even so, the actual process of implementing standards-based grading at a school or district level can be a significant challenge. There are very practical questions that remain unclear, such as how the grades…

We investigated the impact of an augmented reality (AR) versus interactive simulation (IS) activity incorporated in a computer learning environment to facilitate students' learning of a socio-scientific issue (SSI) on nuclear power plants and radiation pollution. We employed a quasi-experimental research design. Two classes (a total of 45…

Causal inference in observational studies typically requires making comparisons between groups that are dissimilar. For instance, researchers investigating the role of a prolonged duration of breastfeeding on child outcomes may be forced to make comparisons between women with substantially different characteristics on average. In the extreme there…

This study investigated the development of representational competence among organic chemistry students by using 3D (concrete and virtual) models as aids for teaching students to translate between multiple 2D diagrams. In 2 experiments, students translated between different diagrams of molecules and received verbal feedback in 1 of the following 3…

The examination of measurement invariance in polytomous items is complicated by the possibility that the magnitude and sign of lack of invariance may vary across the steps underlying the set of polytomous response options, a concept referred to as differential step functioning (DSF). This article describes three classes of nonparametric DSF effect…

This article considers two methods of estimating standard errors of equipercentile equating: the parametric bootstrap method and the nonparametric bootstrap method. Using a simulation study, these two methods are compared under three sample sizes (300, 1,000, and 3,000), for two test content areas (the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills Maps and Diagrams…

In this article, an overview of nonparametric item response theory methods for determining the dimensionality of item response data is provided. Four methods were considered: MSP, DETECT, HCA/CCPROX, and DIMTEST. First, the methods were compared theoretically. Second, a simulation study was done to compare the effectiveness of MSP, DETECT, and…

Robustness and power of parametric, semi-parametric, and nonparametric tests of between-group discordance were compared in this simulation study. The empirical Type I error rates and power of nine tests were compared. When data were sampled from the any differences especially favor young women in single-sex Catholic secondary schools, and whether…

The nonparametric Mokken model of test data was compared with parametric models using simulated data through latent class analysis. It is demonstrated that latent class analysis provides a consistent comparison of item response models. (SLD)

A computer simulation compared significance tests of correlation coefficients calculated from initial scores, from ranks assigned by the Spearman method, and from three kinds of modified ranks. Implications of findings for the idea that rank correlation is a nonparametric correlation method are discussed. (SLD)