As a result of the Japanese Ministry of Education's recent edict that students' written and spoken English should be assessed in university entrance exams, there is an urgent need for tools to help teachers and students prepare for these exams. Although some commercial tools already exist, they are generally expensive and inflexible. To address…

No significant body of research examines writing achievement and the specific skills and knowledge in the writing domain for postsecondary (college) students in the U.S., even though many at-risk students lack the prerequisite writing skills required to persist in their education. This paper addresses this gap through a novel…

In this research, we investigated the feasibility of implementing the "e-rater"® scoring engine as a check score in place of all-human scoring for the "Graduate Record Examinations"® ("GRE"®) revised General Test (rGRE) Analytical Writing measure. This report provides the scientific basis for the use of e-rater as a…

Online testing is becoming a popular way to deliver language tests, partly because of its reduced cost, partly because of the high quality of test data collection. In language tests, interface validation has received a limited attention in professional literature (García, Magal, da Rocha, & Fernández, 2010). This paper will show the validation…

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.…

This brief research report gives an overview of a visually based methodology that has recently been used to shed light on situated decision-making in a high stakes educational assessment environment. Looking carefully at the feedback interactions taking place between senior and less senior examiners, the project aim was to gain insight into the…

Over the past four decades, there has been incremental growth in computer-based testing (CBT) as a viable alternative to paper-and-pencil testing. However, the transition to CBT is neither easy nor inexpensive. As Drasgow, Luecht, and Bennett (2006) noted, many design engineering, test development, operations/logistics, and psychometric changes…

As the use of mobile learning educational applications has become more common anywhere in the world, new concerns have appeared in the classroom, human interaction in software engineering and ergonomics. new tests of foreign languages for a number of purposes have become more and more common recently. However, studies interrelating language tests…

The purpose of this paper is to report results on the development of a new computer-assisted methodology for creating parallel test forms using the item response theory (IRT) information function. Recently, several researchers have approached test construction from a mathematical programming perspective. However, these procedures require…

E-rater[R] has been used by the Educational Testing Service for automated essay scoring since 1999. This paper describes a new version of e-rater (V.2) that is different from other automated essay scoring systems in several important respects. The main innovations of e-rater V.2 are a small, intuitive, and meaningful set of features used for…

This user manual describes procedures for using Version 3.0 Computerized Placement Tests (CPTs) software and provides information about the hardware required to operate it. The software features the College-Level Mathematics (CLM) test, Seamless Serial Testing branching capabilities, new system installation and uninstallation procedures, and new…

This guide is designed to enable the beginner, as well as the advanced user, to understand and use the Computerized Placement Management Software (CPMS). The CPMS is a system for evaluating information about students and recommending their placement into courses best suited for them. It also tracks their progress and maintains their records. The…