The present study was initiated to investigate the comparability of multiple-choice and true-false item formats when the time necessary to respond to each type of item was equated empirically. (Editor)

Confidence Weighting (CW), after Ebel, and Multiple Responding (MR), after Coombs, are compared empirically to determine which improved test reliability more in the case of a course pretest derived from the final examination. It was hypothesized that MR, which purportedly measures partial knowledge, would be more effective than CW, which measures…

The contribution of a 20-minute essay question, given as part of the one-hour achievement test in American History and Social Studies, to the pool of information available on a candidate from an all-objective examination of the College Board Admissions Testing Program is presented in this report. The study limits itself to a consideration of the…

Primary purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of various scoring methods on the reliability and validity of the Primary Test of Economic Understanding (PTEU). the PTEU was designed to be scored using the matched pair procedure. (Authors)

Discusses statistical procedures for increasing test unreliability due to guessing in multiple choice and true/false tests. Proposes two new measures of test unreliability: one concerned with resolution of defined levels of knowledge and the other with the probability of examinees being incorrectly ranked. Both models are based on the binomial…

Describes four measures of test unreliability that quantify effects of question selection and guessing, both separately and together--three chosen for immediacy and one for greater mathematical elegance. Quantifies their dependence on test length and number of answer options per question. Concludes that many multiple choice tests are unreliable…

Indices were constructed to measure individual differences in the effects of the automated testing format and repeated testing on Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) responses. Two types of instability measures were studied within a data set from the responses of 150 undergraduate students who took a computer-administered and…

Fifty profiles of published tests of writing proficiency are compiled alphabetically with a thorough guide to indirect assessment of writing skill. The profiles are designed to facilitate a general screening of available test options. The elements included in each profile are as follows: test name, publication date, publisher, administration time,…

Three types of test were compared: a completion test, a matching test, and a multiple-choice test. The completion test was more reliable than the matching test, and the matching test was more reliable than the multiple-choice test. (Author/BW)

An address to the ADE in New York, 26 December 1972. (RB)

Examines objectivity as a criterion for excellency in language tests through a critical presentation of the characteristics of objective tests. This examination leads to a discussion of what the best approach to testing language might be, endorsing a combination of integrative and objective techniques. (Author/MES)

Some of the pitfalls in the construction of multiple choice tests are discussed and examples of invalid questions given. (RM)

An alternate-choice test item is a simple declarative sentence, one portion of which is given with two different wordings. For example, "Foundations like Ford and Carnegie tend to be (1) eager (2) hesitant to support innovative solutions to educational problems." The examinee's task is to choose the alternative that makes the sentence…

RISK TAKING ON OBJECTIVE EXAMINATIONS (RTOOE) OCCURS WHENEVER AN EXAMINEE TAKES AN EXAMINATION WITH PENALTIES FOR INCORRECT RESPONSES, AND RESPONDS TO AN ITEM WITHOUT KNOWING THE CORRECT ANSWER WITH CERTAINTY. THIS PROJECT WAS CONCERNED WITH THREE ASPECTS OF RTOOE--(1) ITS MEASUREMENT, (2) ITS GENERALITY, AND (3) ITS EFFECT ON TEST SCORE. IN THE…

The suggestion that multiple-choice items can be converted to true-false items without essentially changing what the item measures and with possible improvement in efficiency is investigated. Each of the 90 four-choice items in a natural science test was rewritten into a pair of true-false items, one true, one false. The resulting 180 items were…