Simulated testing has become more prevalent in higher education, especially as competency-based institutions begin to incorporate micro-credentials and skills certificates into their curriculum. Competency-based assessment falls outside traditional norm-based testing practices used in K-12 education, and is largely focused on criterion referenced…

Education is undergoing various transformations due to new data-driven educational technologies and the management of educational data through data infrastructures. These technologies are frequently promoted to parents and the profession as being 'revolutionary' because they represent a new generation of learning. While computer adaptive tests may…

In this digital ITEMS module, Dr. Jue Wang and Dr. George Engelhard Jr. describe the Rasch measurement framework for the construction and evaluation of new measures and scales. From a theoretical perspective, they discuss the historical and philosophical perspectives on measurement with a focus on Rasch's concept of specific objectivity and…

This study explores student attitudes to the use of substantive on-line assessments that require mathematical answers. Since there is limited guidance available for their use in a university setting, our goal is to learn what are the important aspects in student acceptance of e-assessments that support learning of mathematical subjects in higher…

For the last century, the quality of large-scale assessment in the United States has been undermined by narrow educational theory and hindered by limitations in technology. As a result, poor assessment practices have encouraged low-level instructional practices that disparately affect students from the most disadvantaged communities and schools.…

Purpose: This paper investigates the potential of computerized adaptive testing for CMs to reduce test time. In the context of education and training, competency measurement (CM) is a central challenge in competency management. For complex CMs, a compromise must be addressed between the time available and the quality of the measurements.…

In the context of education and training, competency measurement (CM) is a central challenge in competency management. For complex CMs, a compromise must be addressed between the time available and the number of dimensions to be measured or the quality of the measurements. Increasing the efficiency of existing tests for CMs therefore poses a key…

In this paper, we provide an overview of psychometric procedures and guidelines Educational Testing Service (ETS) uses to evaluate automated essay scoring for operational use. We briefly describe the e-rater system, the procedures and criteria used to evaluate e-rater, implications for a range of potential uses of e-rater, and directions for…

Automated Essay Scoring (AES) has garnered a great deal of attention from the rhetoric and composition/writing studies community since the Educational Testing Service began using e-rater[R] and the "Criterion"[R] Online Writing Evaluation Service as products in scoring writing tests, and most of the responses have been negative. While the…

Many universities rely on data gathered from tests that are low stakes for examinees but high stakes for the various programs being assessed. Given the lack of consequences associated with many collegiate assessments, the construct-irrelevant variance introduced by unmotivated students is potentially a serious threat to the validity of the…

A simultaneous equating of four new test forms to each other and to one previous form was accomplished through a complex design incorporating seven separate equating links. Each new form was linked to the reference form by four different paths, and each path produced a different score conversion. The procedure used to resolve these inconsistencies…

The current study was designed to extend the current literature to study scale drift in CAT as part of improving quality control and calibration process for ACCUPLACER, a battery of large-scale adaptive placement tests. The study aims to evaluate item parameter drift using empirical data that span four years from the ACCUPLACER Arithmetic…

Assessing individual change is an important topic in both psychological and educational measurement. An adaptive measurement of change (AMC) method had previously been shown to exhibit greater efficiency in detecting change than conventional nonadaptive methods. However, little work had been done to compare different procedures within the AMC…

Many exam programs have begun to include innovative item types in their operational assessments. While innovative item types appear to have great promise for expanding measurement, there can also be genuine challenges to their successful implementation. In this paper we present a set of four activities that can be beneficially incorporated into…

Pupil monitoring systems support the teacher in tailoring teaching to the individual level of a student and in comparing the progress and results of teaching with national standards. The systems are based on the availability of an item bank calibrated using item response theory. The assessment of the students' progress and results can be further…