In this report, we demonstrate use of differential response time (DRT) methodology, an extension of differential item functioning methodology, for examining differences in how students from different backgrounds engage with assessment tasks. We analyze response time data from a digitally delivered mathematics assessment to examine timing…

Many university programs include Microsoft Excel courses given their value as a scientific and technical tool. However, evaluating what is effectively learned by students is a challenging task. Considering multiple-choice written exams are a standard evaluation format, this study aimed to uncover the features influencing students' success in…

This comparative research study examined Grade Five Malaysian Aboriginal pupils' mathematical performance on 30 computation and 20 word problem items in the academic Malay language and community "Temiar" language. The items were constructed in the Malay language before adapting and audio recording into the "Temiar" language…

Purpose: Position effects may influence examinees' test performances in several ways and trigger other psychometric issues, such as Differential Item Functioning (DIF) .This study aims to supply test forms in which items in the test are ordered differently, depending on their difficulty level (from easy to difficult or difficult to easy), to…

Classroom practices, materials and teaching methods in language classes have changed a lot in the last decades and continue to evolve; however, the commonly used techniques to test students' foreign language skills have not changed much regardless of the recent awareness in Bloom's taxonomy. Testing units at schools rely mostly on multiple choice…

This study investigated the performance and reasoning of 143 Australian students who completed mathematics tasks sourced from their national test. Specifically, this study examined changed student performance and reasoning on items where the graphic component was modified. The results of the study revealed significant performance differences…

In this study, we investigated gender and minority achievement gaps on 8th-grade science items employing a multilevel item response methodology. Both gaps were wider on physics and earth science items than on biology and chemistry items. Larger gender gaps were found on items with specific topics favoring male students than other items, for…

Sources of observed differences in difficulty between items in graph comprehension performance were studied using 132 items from the Psychometric Entrance Test, an Israeli college entrance examination. Results indicate that item difficulty can be predicted successfully on the basis of item characteristics and task demands. Implications for graph…

Two factors, language difficulty and option set convergence, were experimentally manipulated and their effects on item difficulty assessed. Option convergence was found to have a significant effect on item difficulty while the effect of language difficulty was not significant. (Author/BW)

Various experiments demonstrated that the difficulty level of several performance-type intelligence test tasks is determined directly by stimulus and task variables that vary the information to be processed. The implications of these findings for intelligence and the problems of an experimental approach to the measurement of intelligence are…

Time limits on some computer-adaptive tests (CATs) are such that many examinees have difficulty finishing, and some examinees may be administered tests with more time-consuming items than others. Results from over 100,000 examinees suggested that about half of the examinees must guess on the final six questions of the analytical section of the…

Providing examinees with advanced knowledge of the difficulty of an item led to an increase in test performance with no loss of reliability. This finding was consistent across several test formats. ( Author/JKS)

Administered three item-difficulty sequence forms of an achievement test to 107 sixth-grade students. No relationship between item-difficulty sequence and test performance, reliability, or item difficulty and discrimination was discovered. (Author/JAC)

Number right and elimination scores were analyzed on a college level mathematics exam assembled from pretest data. Anxiety measures were administered along with the experimental forms to undergraduates. Results suggest that neither test scores nor attitudes are influenced by item order knowledge thereof, or anxiety level. (Author/GK)

Forty-five graduate students in two educational psychology classes were randomly assigned to three groups for a classroom test on the course content. One group was asked to go to another room and then was privately excused from the test. The other two groups took tests with the same 32 items, but one group used a multiple-choice format and the…