Self-regulated learning (SRL) promotes both current and future academic achievement and must be adapted based on task demands. To develop SRL, gifted students must have opportunities to experience optimally challenging tasks. Gifted students' past experiences (or lack thereof) with challenging tasks affects how they approach current tasks, which…

The report is the first systematic evaluation of the sentence equivalence item type introduced by the "GRE"® revised General Test. We adopt a validity framework to guide our investigation based on Kane's approach to validation whereby a hierarchy of inferences that should be documented to support score meaning and interpretation is…

This study aimed at exploring the impact of mentor text modelling on Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' accuracy and fluency in writing tasks with different cognitive complexity in comparison with two conventional approaches to teaching writing; namely, process-based and product-based approaches. To this end, 60 Iranian EFL…

Increased universities and colleges offer the undergraduates with more follow-up courses with the further reform in college English education in China. An investigation on self-evaluation, difficulty, and willingness of undergraduates in learning English further was made in order to design more appropriate and adaptable follow-up courses. This…

Previous research on calculator use in standardized assessments of quantitative ability focused on the effect of calculator availability on item difficulty and on whether test developers can predict these effects. With the introduction of an on-screen calculator on the Quantitative Reasoning measure of the "GRE"® revised General Test, it…

Cognitive complexity level is important for measuring both aptitude and achievement in large-scale testing. Tests for standards-based assessment of mathematics, for example, often include cognitive complexity level in the test blueprint. However, little research exists on how mathematics items can be designed to vary in cognitive complexity level.…

The authors clarify the source of a conflict between previous findings related to metacognitive control over the distribution of practice. In a study by L. Son (2004), learners were initially presented pairs of Graduate Record Examination (GRE) vocabulary words and their common synonyms for 1 s, after which they chose to study the pair again…

In order to estimate the likely effects on item difficulty when a calculator becomes available on the quantitative section of the Graduate Record Examinations® (GRE®-Q), 168 items (in six 28-item forms) were administered either with or without access to an on-screen four-function calculator. The forms were administered as a special research…

In actual test development practice, the number of test items that must be developed and pretested is typically greater, and sometimes much greater, than the number eventually judged suitable for use in operational test forms. This has proven to be especially true for analytical reasoning items, which currently form the bulk of the analytical…

This paper explores alternative approaches for facilitating efficient, evidence-centered item development for a new type of verbal reasoning item developed for use on the GRE® General Test. Results obtained in two separate studies are reported. The first study documented the development and validation of a fully automated approach for locating the…

Content characteristics of 1,400 Graduate Record Examination (GRE) analytical reasoning items were coded for item difficulty and discrimination. The results provide content characteristics for consideration in extending specifications for analytical reasoning items and a better understanding of the construct validity of these items. (TJH)

This study examines the predictability of Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) reading item difficulty (equated delta) for the three major reading item types: main idea, inference, and explicit statement items. Each item type is analyzed separately, using 110 GRE reading passages and their associated 244 reading items; selective analyses of 285…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether it is both possible and cost-effective to revise middle-difficulty Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) discrete items in order to produce items of higher or lower difficulty. The basic procedure was to select items of a given difficulty and, by revising the distractors, make them easier or more…

The first of two studies reported examined the factors that predict differences in item responses for black and white matched examinees to analogies on the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE). Data were taken from 13 forms of the GRE Verbal Test, with a median sample size of 21,000 whites and a median sample size of 1,400 blacks for the purpose of…

The stability was evaluated of a partial correlation index, comparisons of item characteristic curves, and comparisions of item difficulties in assessing race and sex differences in the performance of verbal items on the Graduate Record Examination Aptitude Test. All three indexes exhibited consistency in identifying the same items in different…