The test blueprint is important in test development, where it guides the test item writer in creating test items according to the desired objectives and specifications or characteristics (so-called a priori item characteristics), such as the level of item difficulty in the category and the distribution of items based on their difficulty level.…

This article presents the results of an empirical study of "subset selection" tests, which are a generalisation of traditional multiple-choice tests in which test takers are able to express partial knowledge. Similar previous studies have mostly been supportive of subset selection, but the deduction of marks for incorrect responses has…

There is always a chance that examinees will answer multiple choice (MC) items correctly by guessing. Design choices in some modern exams have created situations where guessing at random through the full exam--rather than only for a subset of items where the examinee does not know the answer--can be an effective strategy to pass the exam. This…

In item response theory test scaling/equating with the three-parameter model, the scaling coefficients A and B have no impact on the c-parameter estimates of the test items since the cparameter estimates are not adjusted in the scaling/equating procedure. The main research question in this study concerned how serious the consequences would be if…

For several decades, the "three-parameter logistic model" (3PLM) has been the dominant choice for practitioners in the field of educational measurement for modeling examinees' response data from multiple-choice (MC) items. Past studies, however, have pointed out that the c-parameter of 3PLM should not be interpreted as a guessing…