Designing and constructing pedagogical tests that contain items (i.e. questions) which measure various types of skills for different levels of students equitably is a challenging task. Teachers and item writers alike need to ensure that the quality of assessment materials is consistent, if student evaluations are to be objective and effective.…

Comparing language tests and test preparation materials holds important implications for the latter's validity and reliability. However, not enough studies compare such materials across a wide range of indices. Therefore, this study investigated the text complexity of IELTS academic reading tests (IRT) and IELTS reading practice tests (IRPrT).…

Elicited Imitation Tests (EITs) are commonly used in second language acquisition (SLA)/bilingualism research contexts to assess the general oral proficiency of study participants. While previous studies have provided valuable EIT construct-related validity evidence, some key gaps remain. This study uses an integrative data analysis to further…

The purpose of this review of literature was to identify research findings for designing assessments in singing accuracy. The aim was to specify the test construction variables that directly affect test performance to guide future design in singing accuracy assessment for research and classroom uses. Three pitch-matching tasks--single pitch,…

Multiple-choice testing is considered one of the most effective and enduring forms of educational assessment that remains in practice today. This study presents a comprehensive review of the literature on multiple-choice testing in education focused, specifically, on the development, analysis, and use of the incorrect options, which are also…

International large-scale assessments are on the rise, with the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) seen by many as having strategic prominence in education policy debates. The present article reviews PISA-related English-language peer-reviewed articles from the programme's first cycle in 2000 to its most current in 2015. Five…

There has been an increased interest in developing computer-adaptive testing (CAT) and multistage assessments for K-12 accountability assessments. The move to adaptive testing has been met with some resistance by those in the field of special education who express concern about routing of students with divergent profiles (e.g., some students with…

A statistic used by R. Meijer (1994) to determine person-fit referred to the number of errors from the deterministic Guttman model (L. Guttman, 1950), but this was, in fact, based on the number of errors from the deterministic Guttman model as defined by J. Loevinger (1947, 1948). (SLD)

Research support for providing a read-aloud accommodation (i.e., having an individual read test items and directions aloud) to students with disabilities has been somewhat limited, particularly when merely examining effects of the accommodation on overall test scores for general groups of students with disabilities. We examined data on…

In today's higher education, high quality assessments play an important role. Little is known, however, about the degree to which assessments are correctly aimed at the students' levels of competence in relation to the defined learning goals. This article reviews previous research into teachers' and students' perceptions of item difficulty. It…

The rationale for use of instructional sensitivity in the empirical review of test items is examined, and the results of a study that distinguishes instructional sensitivity from other item concepts are presented. Research is reviewed which indicates the existence of instructional sensitivity as a unique criterion-referenced test item concept. (RL)

A comprehensive review is given of evidence, with a bearing on the recommendation to avoid use of complex multiple choice (CMC) items. Avoiding Type K items (four primary responses and five secondary choices) seems warranted, but evidence against CMC in general is less clear. (SLD)

Based on a previously validated cognitive processing model of reading comprehension, this study experimentally examines potential generative components of text-based multiple-choice reading comprehension test questions. Previous research (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987; Gorin & Embretson, 2005; Sheehan & Ginther, 2001) shows text encoding and decision…

A meta-analysis of the difficulty and discrimination of the "none-of-the-above" (NOTA) test option was conducted with 12 articles (20 effect sizes) for difficulty and 7 studies (11 effect sizes) for discrimination. Findings indicate that using the NOTA option does not result in items of lesser quality. (SLD)

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between a set of item characteristics and the difficulty of TOEFL[R] dialogue items. Identifying characteristics that are related to item difficulty has the potential to improve the efficiency of the item-writing process The study employed 365 TOEFL dialogue items, which were coded on 49…