Speeded tests set time limits so that few examinees can reach all items, and power tests allow most test-takers sufficient time to attempt all items. Educational achievement tests are sometimes described as "timed power tests" because the amount of time provided is intended to allow nearly all students to complete the test, yet this…

A significant gap exists between the graduation rate of students with disabilities and their nondisabled. The purpose of this quantitative correlation study was to determine the relationship self-determination had on college and career readiness using ACT scores of students with high incident disabilities. This study was guided by the following…

In preparation for online administration of the ACT® test, ACT conducted studies to examine the comparability of scores between online and paper administrations, including a timing study in fall 2013, a mode comparability study in spring 2014, and a second mode comparability study in spring 2015. This report presents major findings from these…

Detecting unusual similarity in the item responses of a pair of examinees usually conditions on the pair's overall test performance (e.g., raw scores). Doing this, however, often requires assumptions about the invariance of other examinee pair characteristics. In this study, we examined the appropriateness of such assumptions about selected…

In this study, we investigated whether preequating results agree with equating results that are based on observed operational data (postequating) for a college placement program. Specifically, we examined the degree to which item response theory (IRT) true score preequating results agreed with those from IRT true score postequating and from…

A procedure is described for estimating the reliability and conditional standard errors of measurement of scale scores incorporating the discrete transformation of raw scores to scale scores. The method is illustrated using a strong true score model, and practical applications are described. (SLD)