We revisit the empirically observed positive correlation between DIF and difficulty studied by Freedle and commonly seen in tests of verbal proficiency when comparing populations of different mean latent proficiency levels. It is shown that a positive correlation between DIF and difficulty estimates is actually an expected result (absent any true…

Background: Although verbal imitation can provide a valuable window into the developing language abilities of toddlers, some toddlers find verbal imitation challenging and will not comply with tests that involve elicited verbal imitation. The characteristics of stimuli that are offered to toddlers for imitation may influence how easy or hard it is…

This paper explores how 11 Canadian doctoral candidates performed as researchers in the final doctoral oral examination in handling questions that they identified as "difficult to answer". Drawing from communities of practice theory, the study views the defence as an examination in which a novice researcher (the doctoral candidate)…

The aim of this research is to determine whether students' test performance and approaches to test questions change based on the type of mathematics questions (visual or verbal) administered to them. This research is based on a mixed-design model. The quantitative data are gathered from 297 seventh grade students, attending seven different middle…

This study investigated the relational reasoning capabilities of older adolescents and young adults when the focal assessment was a verbal and more schooled measure than 1 that was figural and more novel in its configuration. To achieve this end, the verbal test of relational reasoning (vTORR) was constructed to parallel the test of relational…

This paper traces 9 non-English major EFL students and collects their oral productions in 4 successive oral exams in 2 years. The canonical correlation analysis approach of SPSS is adopted to study the disfluencies developmental traits under the influence of language acquisition development. We find that as language acquisition develops, the total…

Santelices and Wilson (2010) claimed to have addressed technical criticisms of Freedle (2003) presented in Dorans (2004a) and elsewhere. Santelices and Wilson's abstract claimed that their study confirmed that SAT[R] verbal items do function differently for African American and White subgroups. In this commentary, I demonstrate that the…

In 2003, the "Harvard Educational Review" published a controversial article by Roy Freedle that claimed bias against African American students in the SAT college admissions test. Freedle's work stimulated national media attention and faced an onslaught of criticism from experts at the Educational Testing Service (ETS), the agency…

Classroom research on achievement goals has revealed that performance-approach goals (goals to outperform others) positively predict exam performance whereas performance-avoidance goals (goals not to perform more poorly than others) negatively predict it. Because prior classroom research has primarily utilized multiple-choice exam performance, the…

The Tactual Profile assesses tactual functioning of children with severe visual impairments between 0 and 16 years of age. The Tactual Profile consists of 430 items, measuring tactile skills required for performing everyday tasks at home and in school. Items are graded according to age level and divided into three domains: tactual sensory, tactual…

When a test is adapted from a source language (SL) into a target language (TL), the two forms are usually not psychometrically equivalent. If linking between test forms is necessary, those items that have had their psychometric characteristics altered by the translation (differential item functioning [DIF] items) should be eliminated from the…

Examined factors affecting the difficulty of verbal analogies in a psychometric examination by characterizing 104 analogies using 5 defined attributes. Both knowledge and process attributes were found to contribute to the difficulty of verbal analogies assessed by 10 judges. (SLD)

Three "tests" of intellectual competence (vocabulary, remote associates, trigram word-making) which permit cheating were standardized by rankings of 71 college students. The three tests were found to be equidistant along the dimension of perceived difficulty. Suggestions are made for using these tasks in cheating studies. (Author/SJL)

An experiment was conducted that contrasted a variant of computerized adaptive testing, self-adapted testing, with two traditional tests. Participants completed a self-report of text anxiety and were randomly assigned to take one of the three tests of verbal ability. Subjects generally chose more difficult items as the test progressed. (Author/LMO)

The dichotomous Rasch model was applied to verbal subtest scores on the Intelligence Structure Test Battery for 905 12- to 15-year-old secondary school students in the Netherlands. Results suggest that, if any factor is used to increase difficulty of items, that factor should be used on all items. (SLD)