While agreeing with van der Linden (this issue) that test equating needs better theoretical underpinnings, my comments criticize several aspects of his article. His examples are, for the most part, worthless; he does not use well-established terminology correctly; his view of 100 years of attempts to give a theoretical basis for equating is…

In the nonequivalent groups with anchor test (NEAT) design, there are several ways to use the information provided by the anchor in the equating process. One of the NEAT-design equating methods is the linear observed-score Levine method (Kolen & Brennan, 2004). It is based on a classical test theory model of the true scores on the test forms…

Gives an account of classical test theory that shows how it can be viewed as a mean and variance approximation to a general version of item response theory and then shows how this approach can give insight into predicting the true score of a test and the true scores of tests not necessarily parallel to the given test. (SLD)

Section pre-equating (SPE) equates a new test to an old test prior to the actual use of a new test by making extensive use of experimental sections of a testing instrument. SPE theory is extended to allow for practice effects on both the old and new tests. (Author/BS)

Deciding whether sets of test data are consistent with any of a large class of item response models is considered. The assumption of local independence is weakened to a new condition, local nonnegative dependence (LND). Necessary and sufficient conditions are derived for a LND item response model. (Author/JKS)

Allowing students to choose the question(s) that they will answer from among several possible alternatives is often viewed as a mechanism for increasing fairness in certain types of assessments. The fairness of optional topic choice is not a universally accepted fact, however, and various studies have been done to assess this question. We examine…