David Thissen, a professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Quantitative Program at the University of North Carolina, has consulted and served on technical advisory committees for assessment programs that use item response theory (IRT) over the past couple decades. He has come to the conclusion that there are usually two purposes…

"Linking" is a term given to a general class of procedures by which one represents scores X on one test or measure in terms of scores Y on another test or measure. A recent taxonomy by Holland and Dorans (2006; Holland, 2007) organizes the various types of links into three broad categories: prediction, scale aligning, and equating. In…

The article "Thinking About Linking" by Newton (2010) presents a novel philosophical perspective on the way that educational assessments should be linked. Newton starts by describing the linking framework as it was characterized in various publications and identifies a cross-cultural dimension in the definitions and uses of test…

A need for measurement exists not only in academic events but also in the affective domain. The author presents a procedure for quantification of affective behavior. The procedure contains three stages. One is the conceptualization stage in which personal meanings of elements in the affective domain are examined. Another is the crucial…

Makes a case that the architects of national testing posited a measuring scale in which consecutive levels were separated by 2 years of learning under the influence of the "thought disorder" described by J. Michell, who claimed that psychological measurement may be little more than numerical coding. (SLD)

Variables that affect the deductive reasoning of adult students are isolated and relevant literature reviewed in order to facilitate the design of a reliable measurement instrument. The relationships of previous instruction, cultural background, occupation, intelligence, sex, and reasoning habits to test scores of examinees are discussed. Studies…

Certain modifications of a conventional test are proposed which force the item difficulty level to adjust automatically to the ability level of the examinee. The modified test is called a flexilevel test. Although different examinees take different sets of items, the scoring method provides comparable scores for all. Furthermore, the test is…

Since mid-1971 the Instructional Objectives Exchange has been engaged in a major effort to develop and disseminate criterion-referenced tests in the fields of reading, mathematics, language arts, and social studies. This paper isolates the chief technical decision-alternatives faced in this project, such as: (1) the optimal number of tests to…

This article provides a broad overview of the definition of web-based surveys examining some of the benefits and burdens related to using the Web for data collection. It draws upon the experience of two years of data collection on 10 university campuses demonstrating that there are noticeable differences in the speed with which web-based surveys…

This study criticizes current approaches to language test development for their restrictive views of how language should be measured. Language tests are based either on an input component (what goes into a test) or an output component (how should the test be measured). An integration of both components on language tests is advocated. The…

In an attempt to restore the symmetry and balance between the study of person and item variation, this paper presents a novel methodology construct specification equations, which allows one to ascertain from the lawful behavior of items what an instrument is measuring. (Author/PN)

Reasonable and practical solutions to two major problems confronting the developer of any test of educational achievement (what to measure and how to measure it) are proposed, defended, and defined. (Author/PN)

A sample of the literature on test speededness is reviewed; methods of assessing speededness are presented and criticized; the assumptions that underlie these methods are questioned, and alternate, multiple-administration methods are suggested. The importance of the effect of time limits is discussed. (Author/CTM)

Many self-concept measures employ several different scales to which the subject responds in a set order at one sitting. This study examined effects of different testing conditions. The Index of Adjustment and Values (IAV) was administered to 191 graduate students under two different sequences and two time delay conditions. Results indicate…