This study explores the potential of using online tests for the assessment of school readiness and for monitoring early reasoning. Four tests of a face-to-face-administered school readiness test battery (speech sound discrimination, relational reasoning, counting and basic numeracy, and deductive reasoning) and a paper-and-pencil inductive…

The authors examined students' effort and performance using online versus traditional classroom testing procedures. The instructor and instructional methodology were the same in different sections of an introductory finance class. Only the procedure in which students were tested--online versus in the classroom--differed. The authors measured…

This study explores correlations between human ratings of essay quality and component scores based on similar natural language processing indices and weighted through a principal component analysis. The results demonstrate that such component scores show small to large effects with human ratings and thus may be suitable to providing both summative…

The Fall 2007 and Spring 2008 pilot tests for the "CBAL"™ Writing assessment included experimental keystroke logging capabilities. This report documents the approaches used to capture the keystroke logs and the algorithms used to process the outputs. It also includes some preliminary findings based on the pilot data. In particular, it…

The purposes of this study are twofold. First, to investigate the construct or factorial structure of a set of Reading and Mathematics computerized adaptive tests (CAT), "Measures of Academic Progress" (MAP), given in different states at different grades and academic terms. The second purpose is to investigate the invariance of test…

Computer-based tests (CBTs) often use random ordering of items in order to minimize item exposure and reduce the potential for answer copying. Little research has been done, however, to examine item position effects for these tests. In this study, different versions of a Rasch model and different response time models were examined and applied to…

This study explored the impact of partial credit scoring of one type of innovative items (multiple-response items) in a computerized adaptive version of a large-scale licensure pretest and operational test settings. The impacts of partial credit scoring on the estimation of the ability parameters and classification decisions in operational test…

In the human sciences, a common assumption is that latent traits have a hierarchical structure. Higher order item response theory models have been developed to account for this hierarchy. In this study, computerized adaptive testing (CAT) algorithms based on these kinds of models were implemented, and their performance under a variety of…

Traditional methods for item selection in computerized adaptive testing only focus on item information without taking into consideration the time required to answer an item. As a result, some examinees may receive a set of items that take a very long time to finish, and information is not accrued as efficiently as possible. The authors propose two…

This study introduces emotional feedback as a construct in an acceptance model. It explores the effect of emotional feedback on behavioral intention to use Computer Based Assessment (CBA). A female Embodied Conversational Agent (ECA) with empathetic encouragement behavior was displayed as emotional feedback. More specifically, this research aims…

The item response times (RTs) collected from computerized testing represent an underutilized type of information about items and examinees. In addition to knowing the examinees' responses to each item, we can investigate the amount of time examinees spend on each item. Current models for RTs mainly focus on parametric models, which have the…

Mou, Zhao, and McNamara (2007) proposed the "intrinsic model of human spatial memory," which posits that a viewer's memory of an array of objects will exhibit a preferred direction that is aligned with an intrinsic axis of the array. They defined intrinsic axes as salient axes created in part by the physical (geometric) properties of the…

Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) appear to be one of the most widely used computer-based technologies for teaching and learning, and may emerge as a potential tool for e-assessment. However, little is known about how VLE tools are used in various forms of assessment and what kinds of teaching practice the use of such technologies brings about.…

This study examines the validity of the complex problem solving (CPS) test MicroDYN by investigating a) the relation between its dimensions--rule identification (exploration strategy), rule knowledge (acquired knowledge), rule application (control performance)--and working memory capacity (WMC), and b) whether CPS predicts school grades in…

In intertemporal decision making, individuals prefer smaller rewards delivered sooner over larger rewards delivered later, often to an extent that seems irrational from an economical perspective. This behavior has been attributed to a lack of self-control and reflection, the nonlinearity of human time perception, and several other sources.…