A study conducted at the Universities of Haifa and Tel-Aviv to compare two approaches to constructing general multiple choice ability tests--the "classic distractor" test and a new technique, the "fixed-distractor" format test--found a strong similarity between the scores on the two general information ability tests. Seven…

This report describes an experiment in constructed response testing undertaken in conjunction with the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88). Constructed response questions are those that require students to produce their own response rather than selecting the correct answer from several options. Participants in this experiment…

The relative effectiveness of multiple-choice (MC) and constructed-response (CR) test formats in computer-managed instruction (CMI) were compared using four test groups of 30 trainees each who were assigned nonsystematically from the basics course at the Propulsion Engineering School, Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Group A took module tests in…

This paper describes a study that investigated the interchangeability of four different assessment methods for measuring middle-school students' understanding of science concepts. The four methods compared were hands-on tasks with associated multiple-choice and written justification items, written analogues of the hands-on tasks, and two types of…

A comparison is presented of alternate-choice and true-false item forms used in an undergraduate natural science course. The alternate-choice item is a modified two-choice multiple-choice item in which the two responses are included within the question stem. This study (1) compared the difficulty level, discrimination level, reliability, and…