This paper presents a study on known approaches for quality assurance of educational test and test items. On its basis a comprehensive approach to the quality assurance of online educational testing is proposed to address the needs of all stakeholders (authors of online tests, teachers, students, experts, quality managers, etc.). According to the…

International Large Scale Assessments have been producing data about educational attainment for over 60 years. More recently however, these assessments as tests have become digitally and computationally complex and increasingly rely on the calculative work performed by algorithms. In this article I first consider the coordination of relations…

This study was designed with the overall goal of understanding how difficulties in reading comprehension are associated with early adolescents' performance in large-scale assessments in subject domains including science and civic-related social studies. The current study extended previous research by taking a cognition-centered approach based on…

Different computational models for generating analogies of the form "A is to B as C is to D" have been proposed over the past 35 years. However, analogy generation is a challenging problem that requires further research. In this article, we present a new approach for generating analogies in Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) format that can be used…

This study examined the effectiveness of the odds-ratio method (Penfield, 2008) and the multinomial logistic regression method (Kato, Moen, & Thurlow, 2009) for measuring differential distractor functioning (DDF) effects in comparison to the standardized distractor analysis approach (Schmitt & Bleistein, 1987). Students classified as participating…

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…

The vertical scales of large-scale achievement tests created by using item response theory (IRT) models are mostly based on cluster (or correlated) educational data in which students usually are clustered in certain groups or settings (classrooms or schools). While such application directly violated assumption of independent sample of person in…

Online learning has been rapidly developing in the last decade. However, there is very little literature available about the actual adoption of online synchronous assessment approaches and any guidelines for effective assessment design and implementation. This paper aims at designing and evaluating the possibility of applying online synchronous…

With the rapidly increasing entrance examinations for the School of Continuing education of CUGB, there is an urgent need of the examination papers that have the parallel testing ability for the same academic program. Based on the analysis of parallel factors and the comparison of the manual generated mode and the computer generated mode, the most…

This research investigates the effect of a web-based model, named "Practicing, Reflecting, and Revising with Web-based Assessment and Test Analysis system (P2R-WATA) Assessment Literacy Development Model," on enhancing assessment knowledge and perspectives of secondary in-service teachers, and adopts a single group experimental research…

Although much has been said about ergonomics in interface and in computer tools and interface design, very few articles in major journals have addressed this topic in relation to language testing. This article describes an experiment carried out at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain, in which 27 Media and Communication students provided…

The world in which learning and assessment must take place is rapidly changing. The digital revolution has created a vast space of interconnected information, communication, and interaction. Functioning effectively in this environment requires so-called 21st century skills such as technological fluency, complex problem solving, and the ability to…

In both purpose and practice, general education in American higher education has experienced several recurring debates and national revivals. In a world with constantly evolving technology, students need a strong general education to be flexible and adaptable to the changes of the world. General education is an important component and requirement…

Orlando and Thissen (2000, 2003) proposed an item-fit index, S-X[superscript 2], for dichotomous item response theory (IRT) models, which has performed better than traditional item-fit statistics such as Yen's (1981) Q[subscript 1] and McKinley and Mill's (1985) G[superscript 2]. This study extends the utility of S-X[superscript 2] to polytomous…

Conventional testing systems usually give students a score as their test result, but do not show them how to improve their learning performance. Researchers have indicated that students would benefit more if individual learning guidance could be provided. However, most of the existing learning diagnosis models ignore the fact that one concept…