Nearly two dozen states now administer online exams. These tests have real consequences: their results feed into accountability systems, which have been used for more than a decade to hold schools and districts accountable for their students' learning. We examine the rollout of computer-based testing in Massachusetts over 2 years to investigate…

Objective: This article examines the effectiveness of remediation for community college students who are identified as having the lowest skills in math. Method: We use transcript data from a state community college system and take advantage of a regression discontinuity design that compares statistically identical students who are assigned to the…

With an increase in the number of online tests, the number of interruptions during testing due to unexpected technical issues seems to be on the rise. For example, interruptions occurred during several recent state tests. When interruptions occur, it is important to determine the extent of their impact on the examinees' scores. Researchers such as…

Online higher education institutions are presented with the concern of how to obtain valid results when administering student learning outcomes (SLO) assessments remotely. Traditionally, there has been a great reliance on unproctored Internet test administration (UIT) due to increased flexibility and reduced costs; however, a number of validity…

Low health literacy is associated with poor health outcomes. Research is needed to understand the mechanisms and pathways of its effects. Computer-based assessment tools may improve efficiency and cost-effectiveness of health literacy research. The objective of this preliminary study was to assess if administration of the Short Test of Functional…

In an effort to better understand the impact of timing limits, the authors compare the learning outcomes of students who completed timed quizzes with students who took untimed quizzes in economics principles courses. Students were assigned two online quizzes--one timed and one untimed--and re-tested on the material the following class day. Our…

Growing reliance on complex constructed response items has generated considerable interest in automated scoring solutions. Many of these solutions are described in the literature; however, relatively few studies have been published that "compare" automated scoring strategies. Here, comparisons are made among five strategies for…

The "e-rater"® automated essay scoring system is used operationally in the scoring of "TOEFL iBT"® independent and integrated tasks. In this study we explored the psychometric added value of reporting four trait scores for each of these two tasks, beyond the total e-rater score.The four trait scores are word choice, grammatical…

From 2011-2013 the VCAA conducted a trial aligning the use of computers in curriculum, pedagogy and assessment culminating in a group of 62 volunteer students sitting their end of Year 12 technology-active Mathematical Methods (CAS) Examination 2 as a computer-based examination. This paper reports on statistical modelling undertaken to compare the…

The traveling salesman problem (TSP) is a combinatorial optimization problem that requires finding the shortest path through a set of points ("cities") that returns to the starting point. Because humans provide heuristic near-optimal solutions to Euclidean versions of the problem, it has sometimes been used to investigate human visual…

The "e-rater"® automated essay scoring system is used operationally in the scoring of the argument and issue tasks that form the Analytical Writing measure of the "GRE"® General Test. For each of these tasks, this study explored the value added of reporting 4 trait scores for each of these 2 tasks over the total e-rater score.…

The number of countries that regularly participate in international large-scale assessments has increased sharply over the past 15 years, with the share of countries participating in the Programme for International Student Assessment growing from one-fifth of countries in 2000 to over one-third of countries in 2015. What accounts for this…

Test providers are increasingly moving toward exclusively administering assessments by computer. Computerized testing is becoming more desirable for test takers because of increased opportunities to test, faster turnaround of individual scores, or perhaps other factors, offering potential benefits for those who may be struggling to pass licensure…

In this research, we investigated the suitability of implementing "e-rater"® automated essay scoring in a high-stakes large-scale English language testing program. We examined the effectiveness of generic scoring and 2 variants of prompt-based scoring approaches. Effectiveness was evaluated on a number of dimensions, including agreement…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether children exposed to 2 languages would benefit from the phonotactic probability cues of a single language in the same way as monolingual peers and to determine whether crosslinguistic influence would be present in a fast-mapping task. Method: Two groups of typically developing children…