Background: Digital-first assessments leverage the affordances of technology in all elements of the assessment process--from design and development to score reporting and evaluation to create test taker-centric assessments. Objectives: The goal of this paper is to describe the engineering, machine learning, and psychometric processes and…

In this investigation, we used real data to assess potential differential effects associated with taking a test in a test center (TC) versus testing at home using remote proctoring (RP). We used a pseudo-equivalent groups (PEG) approach to examine group equivalence at the item level and the total score level. If our assumption holds that the PEG…

Longitudinal studies can produce biased estimates of learning if children miss tests. In an application to summer learning, we illustrate how missing test scores can create an illusion of large summer learning gaps when true gaps are close to zero. We demonstrate two methods that reduce bias by exploiting the correlations between missing and…

In order to ensure content validity by covering a broad range of content domains, the testing times of some educational large-scale assessments last up to a total of two hours or more. Performance decline over the course of taking the test has been extensively documented in the literature. It can occur due to increases in the numbers of: (a)…

Researchers are often inclined to test agreement or discrepancy hypotheses using difference scores. This commentary explains 2 mathematical-statistical principles underlying associations with difference scores and 2 conceptual-interpretation problems that make difference scores inappropriate for testing such hypotheses. The commentary provides…

The purpose of this qualitative exploratory case study was to explore teachers' and administrators' perceptions of test score pollution deriving from COVID-19-related issues that may affect students' test scores on state-mandated standardized tests for grades six through 12 in a state along the Atlantic Coast of the United States. Four research…

Administrative problems such as computer malfunction and power outage occasionally lead to missing item scores, and hence to incomplete data, on credentialing tests such as the United States Medical Licensing examination. Feinberg compared four approaches for reporting pass-fail decisions to the examinees with incomplete data on credentialing…

The present meta-analysis sought to quantify the average degree of aggregated test score distortion due to rapid guessing (RG). Included studies group-administered a low-stakes cognitive assessment, identified RG via response times, and reported the rate of examinees engaging in RG, the percentage of RG responses observed, and/or the degree of…

In international large-scale assessments, students may not be compelled to answer every test item: a student can decide to skip a seemingly difficult item or may drop out before the end of the test is reached. The way these missing responses are treated will affect the estimation of the item difficulty and student ability, and ultimately affect…

The use of differences scores to assess agreement/disagreement has a long and contentious history. Laird (2020) notes, however, that developmentalists have been particularly resistant to discontinue the use of difference scores. One area of developmental science where difference scores are still in regular use is that of parental differential…

Teaching is a stressful profession with a high turnover rate. Schools and related institutions need to take more action to support teachers and keep teacher stress at a manageable level. The continued research and practical effort require measures to examine teachers' stress in a briefer and accurate manner. The Teacher Stress Scale is a recently…

In standardized educational testing, test items are reused in multiple test administrations. To ensure the validity of test scores, the psychometric properties of items should remain unchanged over time. In this article, we consider the sequential monitoring of test items, in particular, the detection of abrupt changes to their psychometric…

Balancing assessment of learning outcomes with the expectations of students is a perennial challenge in education. Difficult exams, in which many students perform poorly, exacerbate this problem and can inspire a wide variety of interventions, such as a grading curve. However, addressing poor performance can sometimes distort or inflate grades and…

The purpose of this study was to empirically examine the grade distributions of proctored and unproctored exams in an online learning environment. The authors statistically compared exam scores and time to complete exams for proctored and unproctored exams in two online courses. Student data were collected from an online section of introductory…

We used data simulations to test whether composites consisting of cohesive subtest scores are more accurate than composites consisting of divergent subtest scores. We demonstrate that when multivariate normality holds, divergent and cohesive scores are equally accurate. Furthermore, excluding divergent scores results in biased estimates of…