Teachers are thrown open to abundance of free text answers which are very daunting to read and evaluate. Automatic assessments of open ended answers have been attempted in the past but none guarantees 100% accuracy. In order to deal with the overload involved in this manual evaluation, a new tool becomes necessary. The unique superlative model…

In general, newer educational assessments are deemed more demanding challenges than students are currently prepared to face. Two types of factors may contribute to the test scores: (1) factors or dimensions that are of primary interest to the construct or test domain; and, (2) factors or dimensions that are irrelevant to the construct, causing…

These proceedings contain the papers of the 15th International Conference on e-Learning (EL 2021), which was organised by the International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS), July 20-22, 2021. This conference is part of the 15th Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems (MCCSIS), July 20-23, 2021,…

Recent evolutions, such as pervasive networking and other enabling technologies, have been increasingly changing human life, knowledge acquisition, and the way works are performed and students learn. In this societal change, educational institutions must maintain their leading role. They have therefore embraced digitally enhanced learning to…

When conducting item reviews, analysts evaluate an array of statistical and graphical information to assess the fit of a field test (FT) item to an item response theory model. The process can be tedious, particularly when the number of human reviews (HR) to be completed is large. Furthermore, such a process leads to decisions that are susceptible…

After passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, states assumed greater responsibility for designing their own accountability and assessment systems. ESSA requires states to measure "higher order thinking skills and understanding" and encourages the use of open-ended performance assessments, which are essential for…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) opened up new possibilities for how student and school success are defined and supported in American public education. States have greater responsibility for designing and building their assessment and accountability systems. These new opportunities to develop performance assessments are critically important…

Content balancing is one of the most important components in the computerized adaptive testing (CAT) especially in the K to 12 large scale tests that complex constraint structure is required to cover a broad spectrum of content. The purpose of this study is to compare the weighted penalty model (WPM) and the weighted deviation method (WDM) under…

Innovative assessments of cross-curricular competencies such as complex problem solving (CPS) have currently received considerable attention in large-scale educational studies. This study investigated the nature of CPS by applying a state-of-the-art approach to assess CPS in high school. We analyzed whether two processes derived from cognitive…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between student mathematics performance of 4th, 8th, and 11th grade students in Nebraska and the mode of test administration, online and paper-pencil. Schools were allowed to select the mode of test administration for their school with some exceptions for students needing…

New technology-enabled assessments offer the potential to understand more than just whether a student answered a test question right or wrong. Using multiple forms of media that enable both visual and graphical representations, these assessments present complex, multistep problems for students to solve and collect detailed information about an…

The recent National Research Council (NRC) report, "Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment," suggests that it is time to rethink the basic assumptions underlying assessment of students and the use of measurement data to enhance teaching and learning. This essay draws on arguments developed in the NRC report to…

This paper examines the history of approaches to diagnosis in education and in medicine--a profession with concentrated attention to the conceptual and mathematical underpinnings of diagnosis. Presented is a comprehensive model of diagnostic testing in education and a summary of the results of four studies, one from each of four separate…

A group of covariance structure models was examined to ascertain the similarity between conventionally administered and computerized adaptive versions of the Differential Aptitude Test (DAT). Results for 332 students indicate that the computerized version of the DAT is an adequate representation of the conventional test battery. (TJH)

The utility of item response theory (IRT) models in computerized adaptive tests is considered. Measurement questions that have been answered using IRT, and those that might be overlooked because of IRT, are reviewed. Areas in which fuller use of IRT could improve adaptive testing practices are identified. (SLD)