The issue of multiple-choice (MC) vs. created-response (CR) test-item formats was reexamined at the eighth-grade level in three subject areas: general science, American history, and arithmetic. In each subject area, alternate forms with the same item-content but differing in which items were in which format were prepared from standardized tests.…

Likert-type inventories of children's attitude toward the world of work were administered to approximately 1,500 students in grades 2-8. The positively and negatively stated scores were analyzed separately. Agreement with positively stated items showed almost no difference among the various grades. However, the trend toward more disagreement among…

The development and implementation in a psychology department of a set of student rating-of-instruction items was discussed. The results of item descriptive statistics, correlational, and principal component analysis supported the construct validity of the items. (Author)

The author surveys literature and practice, primarily in Great Britain and the United States, about multiple-choice testing, comments on criticisms, and defends the state of the art. Varous item types, item writing, test instructions and scoring formulas, item analysis, and test construction are discussed. An extensive bibliography is appended.…

Item response theory bias detection procedures were applied to data from Black and White seniors on the High School and Beyond data files. Overall, the sums-of-squares statistics (weighted by the inverse of the variance errors) were the best indices for quantifying item characteristic curve differences between groups (Author/BW)

This paper discusses how to maintain the integrity of national nomative information for achievement tests when the test that is administered has been customized to satisfy local needs and is not a test that has been nationally normed. Alternative procedures for item selection and calibration are examined. (Author/LMO)

Aphasic (N=15) and non-brain-damaged adults were administered the Nelson Reading Skills Test (NRST). NRST items requiring complex inferences were more difficult than items requiring simple or no inferences. Passage dependency level was higher compared to other tests, suggesting that the NRST more validly measures aphasics' multiple-sentence…

Aspects of practical assessment such as question design and management of the assessment are discussed. Reference is made to some of the problems and to the possibilities for innovation as a result of implementing practical assessment of the kind required by the General Certificate of Secondary Education examining groups. (CW)

This study introduced and demonstrated a new methodology for item and test bias studies: moderated differential item functioning (DIF). This technique expands the DIF methodology to incorporate contextual and sociological variables as moderating effects of the DIF. The study explored differential domain functioning (DDF), so that the focus of…

Louisiana is transforming public education with the "Reaching for Results" reform initiative. "Reaching for Results" includes higher standards for what students should know and be able to do, school and district accountability, increased resources for schools and students, and a new testing program, including the Graduation…

This study examined teacher and peer assessment of English language oral presentation skills in Japanese classrooms. Twelve graduate university students' oral class presentations were assessed by a teacher and four peers. After presentations were rated, teachers calculated the evaluations, and classmates shared their opinions on the top three…

This paper describes the General Educational Development (GED) Testing Service's Spanish Test Adaptation Project. The GED Tests are designed to give those who have not graduated from high school the opportunity to earn a diploma that is recognized by institutions of higher education and employers. The purpose of this project is to develop, based…

The cognitive components standard setting method, recently introduced by D. McGinty and J. Neel (1996), asks judges to specify minimum levels of performance not for the test items, but for smaller portions of items, the component skills and concepts required to answer each item correctly. Items are decomposed into these components before judges…

The initial development of a testlet-based algebra test was previously reported (Wainer and Lewis, 1990). This account provides the details of this excursion into the use of hierarchical testlets and validity-based scoring. A pretest of two 15-item hierarchical testlets was carried out in which examinees' performance on a 4-item subset of each…

The purpose of this research was to study the effect of the three different ways of increasing the number of points contributed by constructed response (CR) items on the reliability of test scores from mixed-item-format tests. The assumption of unidimensionality that underlies the accuracy of item response theory model-based standard error…