Describes a study of primary school children in Western Australia that was conducted to assess student attitudes towards a computer-based interactive arithmetic test. Examines whether the simple format of the test would capture the attention of the children long enough to gather the required statistical data. (Author/LRW)

Constructed a pool of items from operational tests of mathematics to investigate the feasibility of using automated-test-assembly (ATA) methods to moderate simultaneously possibly irrelevant differences between the performance of women and men and African-American and White test takers. Discusses the usefulness of ATA. (SLD)

Comments on the application of a proposed automated test assembly (ATA) to the problem of reducing potential performance differential among population subgroups and points out some pitfalls. Presents a rejoinder by M. Stocking and others. (SLD)

Investigated whether Bloom's taxonomy offers item writers an accurate model for anticipating students' cognitive processes used to solve items on a large-scale mathematics achievement test. Seventh graders thought aloud as they solved problems on the test. Researchers coded their cognitive processes using Bloom's taxonomy. Results suggest that…

Describes how a researcher used student cooperative-learning teams to contribute test items. Discusses the questions generated by students and concludes that teachers have the flexibility to encourage students to generate and solve their own problems. Also concludes that students have the opportunity to be creative and formulate and pose questions…

A study investigated the arithmetic performance of 197 students (grades 3-8) with mild disabilities and 937 controls and data are discussed in terms of student achievement and implications for standards. The mathematics vocabulary of students with mild disabilities was less developed and they had lower performance scores on computation. (Contains…

The interrelation of 4 achievement tests was investigated with 202 students (mean age 11) with specific learning disabilities. Although, in general, achievement subtests claiming to measure the same academic construct were moderately to strongly related, significant mean differences were present on several measures claiming to measure the same…

Twenty-seven children (ages 7-10) with learning disabilities and 42 controls were tested on three different mathematics tasks. Significantly more controls abstracted composite unit structures suggestive of operational logic on modified nonverbal and associativity of length tasks. On a flash card task, children with learning disabilities achieved…

Analyzed data from a session of the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) mathematics examination to identify items displaying a bi-modal expected score distribution, try to explain the bi-modality, rescore the items to remove under-used middle categories, and determine the effect on test reliability of rescoring the data. Discusses…

Examined the effects of providing students with background information about the structure and scoring of mathematics performance assessments (PA). Results for 187 elementary school students who had PA orientation and 182 who did not show the effects of test wiseness training for average and above-average students, but not for below-average…

To assess item dimensionality, the following two approaches are described and compared: hierarchical generalized linear model (HGLM) and multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) model. Two generating models are used to simulate dichotomous responses to a 17-item test: the unidimensional and compensatory two-dimensional (C2D) models. For C2D…

In a previous article, we (Naglieri & Ford, 2003) provided evidence from a large-scale study that similar proportions of White, Black, and Hispanic children would be identified as gifted using the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT; Naglieri, 1997). Lohman (2005) has taken issue with our conclusions and our methods. We provide several…

This study contributes to understanding sources of gender differential item functioning (DIF) on mathematics tests. This study focused on identifying sources of DIF and differential bundle functioning for boys and girls on the British Columbia Principles of Mathematics Exam (Grade 12) using a confirmatory SIBTEST approach based on a…

This study examined how resources, distribution inequality, and biases toward privileged students affected academic performance. Fifteen-year-olds from 41 countries completed a questionnaire and tests in mathematics, reading, and science. Multilevel regression analyses showed that students scored higher in all subjects when they had more resources…

This paper analyzes the relationship between age at arrival and immigrant-receiving high schools (i.e., enclave schools) on the academic performance of first- and second-generation immigrant children using data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS). The CILS survey was conducted in two major immigrant-receiving cities in the…