The historical development of learning style inventories is examined from the dichotomous concepts of cognitive styles to multidimensional assessment. Based on a series of experiments on vertical perception, H. A. Witkin formed the concepts of field-dependent and field-independent cognitive styles. Using the term "learning styles"…

This document provides printed instructions for teachers to use with an IBM-compatible microcomputer to construct tests and then have the computer give the tests, grade them, and print the test results. Computerized tests constructed in this way may contain true-false questions, multiple-choice questions, or a combination of both. The questions…

This paper describes a project for the development of instructional and assessments systems to increase user-proficiency levels for the software created by WordPerfect Corporation. The project was part of an effort by WordPerfect and the Institute for Computer Uses in Education/Evaluation to create and establish standards of proficiency in the use…

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is one of the most frequently used measures of personality. MBTI Form G and a self-descriptive adjectival checklist, the "Personal Preferences Self-Description Questionnaire" (PPSDQ), were administered to 191 college students. The four dimensions of personality measured by the MBTI are:…

This paper presents a technique for applying the Rule Space Model of cognitive diagnosis (Tatsuoka, 1983) to assessment in a semantically rich domain. Responses of 122 architects to 22 architecture test items developed to assess a range of architectural knowledge were analyzed using Rule Space. Verbal protocol analysis guided the construction of a…

A crucial, but often forgotten, role of educational assessment is to enhance students' learning. This author advocates that an assessment program designed for student learning differs from assessment for accountability in purpose, test format, measurement type, number, and spread of tests, use of test results, and amount of interval between…

Whether the shaping of test items can itself result in qualitative differences in examinees' comprehension of reading passages was studied using the Pearson-Johnson item classification system. The specific practice studied incorporated, within an item stem line, references that point the examinee to a specific location within a reading passage.…

A 3-year research program at the University of Connecticut evaluated the effectiveness of a recently implemented general education curriculum on undergraduates. The research consisted of testing students for performance on locally developed test instruments created for each of six general education areas: (1) Science and Technology, (2) Foreign…

Expert systems can be used to aid decisionmaking. A computerized adaptive test is one kind of expert system, although not commonly recognized as such. A new approach, termed EXSPRT, was devised that combines expert systems reasoning and sequential probability ratio test stopping rules. Two versions of EXSPRT were developed, one with random…

Use and non-use of assistive technology by people with physical disabilities were explored. Also examined were the beliefs subjects held about technology use and the quality of their lives. The study began in 1986 with five women with severe cerebral palsy and five men with spinal cord injuries. All participants were equipped with one or more…

To investigate the psychometric feasibility of replacing a paper-and-pencil licensing examination with a computer-administered test, a validity study was conducted. The computer-administered test (Cadm) was a common set of items for all test takers, distinct from computerized adaptive testing, in which test takers receive items appropriate to…

The comprehension processes of adult students solving two-step problems of comparison were studied using eye-movement experiments based on the assumption that eye fixations are synchronous with internal cognitive processes. Twenty university students each solved 24 two-step mathematical word problems of three sentences each with consistent…

A test to be used for placement of students at the University of Texas (UT), Austin, in lower-level courses in Chinese and to award credit-by-examination in some courses was developed, and its validity was tested. Faculty members from the Department of Oriental and African Studies and the Measurement and Evaluation Center of the UT constructed a…

This technical report describes the development of the College-Level Academic Skills Test (CLAST), an instrument designed to measure Florida college students' achievement of the computation and communication skills expected by the completion of their sophomore year. Section I covers CLAST's background and purpose, the requirement that all students…

Prediction of clinical performance of medical students in the clerkship phase was made possible in the earliest phase of medical education by a comprehensive and integrative evaluation instrument entitled "Integrative Examination" (INTEX). A proportional sample of the content learned throughout the year is integrated for measuring…