Four maltreatment items were examined from Wave III (N = 13,516) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Item analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, cross-validation, reliability estimates, and convergent validity coefficients strongly supported the validity of using the four items as a unidimensional composite. Implications for…

We investigated examinees' cognitive processes while they solved selected items from the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), a high-stakes professional certification examination. We focused on ascertaining those mental processes most frequently used by examinees, and the most common types of errors in their thinking. We compared the relationships between…

In a recent article, Nadelson and Southerland (2010. Development and preliminary evaluation of the Measure of Understanding of Macroevolution: Introducing the MUM. "The Journal of Experimental Education", 78, 151-190) reported on their development of a multiple-choice concept inventory intended to assess college students' understanding…

This study explored how students viewed the role of ideas for knowledge work and how such a view was related to their inquiry activities. Data mainly came from students' online interaction logs, group discussion and inquiry, and a survey concerning the role of ideas for knowledge work. The findings suggest that knowledge building was conducive to…

Many psychological scales written in the Likert format include reverse worded (RW) items in order to control acquiescence bias. However, studies have shown that RW items often contaminate the factor structure of the scale by creating one or more method factors. The present study examines an alternative scale format, called the Expanded format,…

Dynamic Assessment (DA) is a postmodern notion in testing which sees instruction and assessment as inextricably mingled contending that learners will progress if provided with dynamic interactions. The main purpose of the study is to see if the scores generated by the computerized dynamic assessment (C-DA) which is grounded in Vygotsky's…

High-stakes testing is used for the purposes of providing results that have important consequences. Validity is the cornerstone upon which all measurement systems are built. This study applied the Item Response Theory principles to analyse Northwest University Kano Post-UTME Economics test items. The developed fifty (50) economics test items was…

As part of an international effort to develop theory and best practices for teaching languages, the U.S. military has, since the American Revolution, been a leading supporter of literacy education to improve the job performance of soldiers. One important aspect of literacy education today--which continues to be a priority for government agencies,…

This study investigated the role of item formats in the performance of 206 nonnative speakers of English on expressive skills (i.e., speaking and writing). Test scores were drawn from the field test of the "Pearson Test of English Academic" for Chinese, French, Hebrew, and Korean native speakers. Four item formats, including…

Objective: The purpose of this study was to develop a comprehensive health literacy assessment tool for young adult college students. Participants: Participants were 144 undergraduate students. Methods: Two hundred and twenty-nine questions were developed, which were based on concepts identified by the US Department of Health and Human Services,…

Since 2010, the whole national cohort Key Stage 2 (KS2) National Curriculum test in science in England has been replaced with a sampling test taken by pupils at the age of 11 from a nationally representative sample of schools annually. The study reported in this paper compares the performance of different subgroups of the samples (classified by…

As more instructors articulate learning objectives for their students within one course, or academic staff collaborate to articulate learning outcomes for programs, a robust means to assess student performance within these becomes increasingly important. The Examinations Institute of the American Chemical Society (ACS), Division of Chemical…

The purpose of this study is to explore patterns in model-data fit related to subgroups of test takers from a large-scale writing assessment. Using data from the SAT, a calibration group was randomly selected to represent test takers who reported that English was their best language from the total population of test takers (N = 322,011). A…

The promotion of physical fitness has been a key objective of physical education for more than a century. During this period, physical education has evolved to accommodate changing views on fitness and health. The purpose of this article is to discuss issues with fitness assessment and fitness education central to the new Presidential Youth…

The US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), requested testing of questions about school bullying that are part of the School Crime Supplement (SCS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The main purpose of this cognitive research was to test proposed changes…