This study was conducted to reveal potential sources of students' difficulty and misconceptions about geometrical concepts with the help of eye tracking. In this study, the students' geometrical misconceptions were explored by answering the questions on the geometry test prepared based on the literature and test-taking processes and represented…

Classroom assessment research in the United States has shifted away from the examination of teacher-made tests, but such tests are still widely used and have an enormous impact on students' educational experiences. Given the major shifts in educational policy in the United States, including the widespread adoption of the Common Core State…

In 2013, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), working collaboratively with state education agencies, released a set of criteria for states to use to evaluate and procure high-quality assessments. The mathematics section of the document included five content-specific criteria to evaluate alignment of assessments to college- and…

Background: Base-ten thinking (BTT) -- children's ability to reason in tens and ones is a crucial measure of Foundation Phase learners' mathematical performance in South Africa. Aim: The study looks at the six learners using BTT to solve additive tasks through two different assessments. Setting: Six purposely selected Grade 3 learners in…

In 2013, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), working collaboratively with state education agencies, released a set of criteria for states to use to evaluate and procure high-quality assessments. The mathematics section of the document included five content-specific criteria to evaluate alignment of assessments to college- and…

We investigated how item formats influence test takers' response tendencies under uncertainty. Adult participants solved content-equivalent math items in three formats: multiple-selection multiple-choice, grid with forced-choice (true-false) options, and grid with non-forced-choice options. Participants showed a greater tendency to commit (rather…

The use of computer-based tests (CBTs), for both formative and summative purposes, has greatly increased over the past years. One major advantage of CBTs is the easy integration of multimedia. It is unclear, though, how to design such CBT environments with multimedia. The purpose of the current study was to examine whether guidelines for designing…

In this research, the effect of an item's type and cognitive level on its difficulty index was investigated. The data source of the study consisted of the responses of the 12535 students in the Turkey sample (6079 and 6456 students from eighth and fourth grade respectively) of TIMSS 2015. The responses were a total of 215 items at the eighth-grade…

The current study investigated how item formats and their inherent affordances influence test-takers' cognition under uncertainty. Adult participants solved content-equivalent math items in multiple-selection multiple-choice and four alternative grid formats. The results indicated that participants' affirmative response tendency (i.e., judge the…

From a sociocognitive perspective, item parameters in a test represent regularities in examinees' item responses. These regularities are originated from shared experiences among individuals in interacting with their environment. Theories explaining the relationship between culture and cognition also acknowledge these shared experiences as the…

We provide evidence of validity for a newly developed diagnostic competence model of operation sense, by both (a) describing the theoretically substantiated development of the competence model in close association with its use within a large-scale formative assessment and (b) providing empirical evidence for the theoretically described cognitive…

Certain item features can be used to explain the difference between the difficulties of items. These item features can relate to the steps necessary to solve the problems or ways in which a increased understanding of material is acquired. This study will examine the relationship between item difficulty and the process skills associated with these…

Within initial teacher education there is increasing pressure to enhance the use of assessment data to support students to improve their knowledge and skills, and to determine what standards they meet upon graduation. For such data to be useful, both programme designers and students require meaningful and comprehensive assessment reports on…

Students' performances in TIMSS have featured strongly in recent discussions and debates about the quality of mathematical learning outcomes both from teachers and policy makers. Findings of TIMSS trends showed that most high school students in Malaysia continue to perform at less than satisfactory levels, particularly, in tasks that are…

In this study, we developed a three-dimensional framework to characterize post-secondary Calculus I final exams. Our "Exam Characterization Framework" (ECF) classifies individual exam items according to the cognitive demand required to answer the item, the representation of both the task statement and the solution, and the item's format.…