Psychometricians have devoted much research and attention to categorical item responses, leading to the development and widespread use of item response theory for the estimation of model parameters and identification of items that do not perform in the same way for examinees from different population subgroups (e.g., differential item functioning…

Multidimensional forced-choice (MFC) items have been found to be useful to reduce response biases in personality assessments. However, conventional scoring methods for the MFC items result in ipsative data, hindering the wider applications of the MFC format. In the last decade, a number of item response theory (IRT) models have been developed,…

Scoring constructed-response items can be highly difficult, time-consuming, and costly in practice. Improvements in computer technology have enabled automated scoring of constructed-response items. However, the application of automated scoring without an investigation of test equating can lead to serious problems. The goal of this study was to…

In this study, we used the Rasch measurement to investigate the fairness of the listening section of a national computerized high-stakes English test for differential item functioning (DIF) across gender subgroups. The computerized test format inspired us to investigate whether the items measure listening comprehension differently for females and…

About 45 R packages to analyze data using item response theory (IRT) have been developed over the last decade. This article introduces these 45 R packages with their descriptions and features. It also describes possible advanced IRT models using R packages, as well as dichotomous and polytomous IRT models, and R packages that contain applications…

As perfectly summarised by Ida Lawrence, "Testing is growing by leaps and bounds across the world. There is a realization that a nation's well-being depends crucially on the educational achievement of its population. Valid tests are an essential tool to evaluate a nation's educational standing and to implement efficacious educational reforms.…

As a method to shorten the test time of the Force Concept Inventory (FCI), we suggest the use of computerized adaptive testing (CAT). CAT is the process of administering a test on a computer, with items (i.e., questions) selected based upon the responses of the examinee to prior items. In so doing, the test length can be significantly shortened.…

There has been an increased interest in the impact of unmotivated test taking on test performance and score validity. This has led to the development of new ways of measuring test-taking effort based on item response time. In particular, Response Time Effort (RTE) has been shown to provide an assessment of effort down to the level of individual…

A popular method to assess measurement invariance of a particular item is based on likelihood ratio tests with all other items as anchor items. The results of this method are often only reported in terms of statistical significance, and researchers proposed different methods to empirically select anchor items. It is unclear, however, how many…

The Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory-Computer Adaptive Test is an alternative method for describing the adaptive function of children and youth with disabilities using a computer-administered assessment. This study evaluated the performance of the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory-Computer Adaptive Test with a national…

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is a state-led consortium working to develop next-generation assessments that more accurately, compared to previous assessments, measure student progress toward college and career readiness. The PARCC assessments include both English Language Arts/Literacy (ELA/L) and…

This study uses the feature sets employed by two automated scoring engines to determine if a "linguistic profile" could be formulated that would help identify items that are likely to exhibit differential item functioning (DIF) based on linguistic features. Sixteen items were administered to 1200 students where demographic information…

Adaptive testing is advantageous in that it provides more efficient ability estimates with fewer items than linear testing does. Item-driven adaptive pretesting may also offer similar advantages, and verification of such a hypothesis about item calibration was the main objective of this study. A suitability index (SI) was introduced to adaptively…

It is shown that deviations of estimated from true values of item difficulty parameters, caused for example by item calibration errors, the neglect of randomness of item difficulty parameters, testlet effects, or rule-based item generation, can lead to systematic bias in point estimation of person parameters in the context of adaptive testing.…

For computerized adaptive tests (CATs) to work well, they must have an item pool with sufficient numbers of good quality items. Many researchers have pointed out that, in developing item pools for CATs, not only is the item pool size important but also the distribution of item parameters and practical considerations such as content distribution…