Objective: Our master's program in biostatistics requires a qualifying examination (QE). A curriculum review led us to question whether to replace a closed-book format with an open-book one. Our goal was to improve the QE. Methods: This is a case study and commentary, where we describe the evolution of the QE, both in its goals and its content.…

When colleges and universities quickly moved their classes online last March, many faculty members gave students the option of pass/fail (P/F) grading. Usually P/F implies a student must reach the minimum passing grade of D to be awarded a P. This brings up the question of what passing a course with a D means. How much of the course material did…

Scoring essays is generally an exhausting and time-consuming task for teachers. Automated Essay Scoring (AES) facilitates the scoring process to be faster and more consistent. The most logical way to assess the performance of an automated scorer is by measuring the score agreement with the human raters. However, we provide empirical evidence that…

Drasgow, Levine, and Zickar (1996) suggested a statistic based on the Neyman-Pearson lemma (e.g., Lehmann & Romano, 2005, p. 60) for detecting preknowledge on a known set of items. The statistic is a special case of the optimal appropriateness indices of Levine and Drasgow (1988) and is the most powerful statistic for detecting item…

Instructor feedback strategies play a key role in the learning acquisition process, especially in online environments. In addition, educational improvement and reform cannot occur without timely and effective assessment approaches. This study, grounded on Bandura's 1967 "self-efficacy and social cognitive theory," focused on identifying…

This study analyzes the effect of the i-Ready program on Yorkship Family School kindergarteners and focuses on educating kindergarteners on computer-use, to tackle the i-Ready program. The i-Ready program makes it easier for the teachers to specialize in their instructions to each student and enhance effectiveness (Fokides & Zachristou, 2020).…

Twenty-three college students participated in two studies evaluating an application designed to measure stimulus overselectivity in pictures depicting facial affect. We analyzed whether this application worked as designed by evaluating whether it could provide a robust analysis of the types of errors users make (e.g., by matching by the top…

The evidence is mounting regarding the guidance to employ more three-option multiple-choice items. From theoretical analyses, empirical results, and practical considerations, such items are of equal or higher quality than four- or five-option items, and more items can be administered to improve content coverage. This study looks at 58 tests,…

This paper identifies important technological, financial, and equity challenges to the development and implementation of online or onscreen educational testing. The insights are based on the author's experiences in New Zealand of being the senior project manager for the Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning (asTTle) computer-based…

In standardized educational testing, test items are reused in multiple test administrations. To ensure the validity of test scores, the psychometric properties of items should remain unchanged over time. In this article, we consider the sequential monitoring of test items, in particular, the detection of abrupt changes to their psychometric…

Many test items use both an image and text, but present them in a spatially separate manner. This format could potentially cause a split-attention effect in which the test taker's cognitive load is increased by having to split attention between the image and text, while mentally integrating the two sources of information. We investigated the…

In order to better manage alternative assessment procedures, incorporating suitable technology can help teachers facilitate an easier, more productive practice in unique and innovative ways. The purpose of this article is, therefore, to provide ideas and resources for technology-facilitated alternative assessment in physical education.

Calculus is traditionally tested, at least in part, by a closed book written examination taken under secure conditions. In March 2020, two-thirds of the way through a vector calculus course, our institution went into lockdown and all teaching and assessment had to shift online. While some teachers insisted that remotely written non-proctored…

While the research on report-writing time is sparse, there is evidence--some empirical, some anecdotal--that school psychologists are devoting more time than ever to report writing. Critics of common report writing practices have been calling for reforms for decades, proposing that reports should be more relevant, readable, and useful (Brenner,…

The purpose of the experiment reported here was to investigate whether mind mapping adds any value as a studying technique to that of testing. We compared the effects of mind mapping on acquisition on graders (N = 68) in a secondary school in two separate consecutive periods of learning called series. In series 1, half the students used mind…