The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of aberrant responses on the estimation accuracy in forced-choice format assessments. To that end, a wide range of aberrant response behaviors (e.g., fake, random, or mechanical responses) affecting upward of 20%--30% of the responses was manipulated under the multi-unidimensional pairwise…

Simulation or game-based assessments produce outcome data and process data. In this article, some statistical models that can potentially be used to analyze data from simulation or game-based assessments are introduced. Specifically, cognitive diagnostic models that can be used to estimate latent skills from outcome data so as to scale these…

The current study used simulated data to investigate the properties of a newly proposed method (Yao's rater model) for modeling rater severity and its distribution under different conditions. Our study examined the effects of rater severity, distributions of rater severity, the difference between item response theory (IRT) models with rater effect…

Maintaining comparability of test scores is a major challenge faced by testing programs that have almost continuous administrations. Among the potential problems are scale drift and rapid accumulation of errors. Many standard quality control techniques for testing programs, which can effectively detect and address scale drift for small numbers of…

Over the course of instruction, instructors generally collect a great deal of information about each student. Integrating that information intelligently requires models for how a student's proficiency changes over time. Armed with such models, instructors can "filter" the data--more accurately estimate the student's current proficiency…

Bayesian network models offer a large degree of flexibility for modeling dependence among observables (item outcome variables) from the same task that may be dependent. This paper explores four design patterns for modeling locally dependent observations from the same task: (1) No context--Ignore dependence among observables; (2) Compensatory…

This paper presents the development of the fusion model skills diagnosis system (fusion model system), which can help integrate standardized testing into the learning process with both skills-level examinee parameters for modeling examinee skill mastery and skills-level item parameters, giving information about the diagnostic power of the test.…

A hierarchical latent regression model is suggested to estimate nested and nonnested relationships in complex samples such as found in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The proposed model aims at improving both parameters and variance estimates via a two-level hierarchical linear model. This model falls naturally within the…

SCORIGHT is a very general computer program for scoring tests. It models tests that are made up of dichotomously or polytomously rated items or any kind of combination of the two through the use of a generalized item response theory (IRT) formulation. The items can be presented independently or grouped into clumps of allied items (testlets) or in…

Large-scale educational assessments such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) sample examinees to whom an exam will be administered. In most situations the sampling design is not a simple random sample and must be accounted for in the estimating model. After reviewing the current operational estimation procedure for NAEP, this…

The Standardized Letter of Recommendation (SLR), a 28-item form, was created by ETS to supplement the qualitative rating of graduate school applicants' nonacademic qualities with a quantitative approach. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the following psychometric properties of the SLR using the Rasch rating-scale model: dimensionality,…

Probabilistic models with more than one latent variable are designed to report profiles of skills or cognitive attributes. Testing programs want to offer additional information beyond what a single test score can provide using these skill profiles. Many recent approaches to skill profile models are limited to dichotomous data and have made use of…

This study assessed the factor structure of the LanguEdge™ test and the invariance of its factors across language groups. Confirmatory factor analyses of individual tasks and subsets of items in the four sections of the test, Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Writing, was carried out for Arabic-, Chinese-, and Spanish-speaking test takers. Two…