The Missionary Training Center (MTC), affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, needs a reliable and cost effective way to measure the oral language proficiency of missionaries learning Spanish. The MTC needed to measure incoming missionaries' Spanish language proficiency for training and classroom assignment as well as to…

This study explores the potential for automated indices related to speech delivery, language use, and topic development to model human judgments of TOEFL speaking proficiency in second language (L2) speech samples. For this study, 244 transcribed TOEFL speech samples taken from 244 L2 learners were analyzed using automated indices taken from…

This paper presents a novel task-oriented, user-centered, multi-method evaluation (TUME) technique and shows how it is useful in providing a more complete, practical and solution-oriented assessment of the accessibility and usability of Learning Management Systems (LMS) for blind and visually impaired (BVI) students. Novel components of TUME…

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a system of international assessments that allows countries to compare outcomes of learning as students near the end of compulsory schooling. PISA core assessments measure the performance of 15-year-old students in mathematics, science, and reading literacy every 3 years. Coordinated by…

Test security has been a concern for computerized adaptive tests (CAT) due to the nature of continuous testing. This concern becomes unprecedentedly severe with increasingly easy access to the World-Wide-Web where some examinees post on the internet their recollections of items they are administered, leaving future examinees with opportunities to…

Research on written language comprehension has generally assumed that the phonological properties of a word have little effect on sentence comprehension beyond the processes of word recognition. Two experiments investigated this assumption. Participants silently read relative clauses in which two pairs of words either did or did not have a high…

In Hong Kong, onscreen marking (OSM) is superseding paper-based marking (PBM) across the entire national examinations system. This paper describes a qualitative study of the attitudes of Liberal Studies markers towards OSM. This becomes a compulsory subject in Hong Kong's new senior secondary school curriculum to be first examined in 2012, with a…

Whether an ability test delivered on either paper or computer provides the same information is an important question in applied psychometrics. Besides the validity, it is also the fairness of a measure that is at stake if the test medium affects performance. This study provides a comprehensive review of existing equivalence research in the field…

Testing and test results can be used in different ways. They can be used for regulation and control, but they can also be a pedagogic tool for assessment of student proficiency in order to target teaching, improve learning and facilitate local pedagogical leadership. To serve these purposes the test has to be used for low stakes purposes, and to…

The time taken to decide whether a character is shown in its mirror or normal version has been shown to increase approximately linearly with the angular departure from an up-right position. Additionally, in some studies, decisions took longer for clockwise tilted characters than for counterclockwise tilted ones. Other studies do not report the…

Three studies are presented on attention paid to feedback provided by a computer-based assessment for learning on information literacy. Results show that the attention paid to feedback varies greatly. In general the attention focuses on feedback of incorrectly answered questions. In each study approximately fifty percent of the respondents paid…

Researchers, educators, professional organizations, administrators, parents, and policy makers have increased their involvement in the assessment and evaluation of early childhood education programs. This interest has developed swiftly during the last decades. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the National…

A usability study was conducted by the Research and Innovation Network and Assessment Solutions Design to assess the usability of a drawing response interaction type. The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) commissioned a multi-part study to determine the viability of using the drawing response interaction on…

This report summarizes the twelfth survey of states by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) at the University of Minnesota. Results are presented for all 50 states and 8 of the 11 unique states. The purpose of this report is to provide a snapshot of the new initiatives, trends, accomplishments, and emerging issues during this…

Assessment is central to any educational process. Number Right (NR) scoring method is a conventional scoring method for multiple choice items, where students need to pick one option as the correct answer. One point is awarded for the correct response and zero for any other responses. However, it has been heavily criticized for guessing and failure…