This study examines the English section of the university entrance examination in Myanmar in terms of validity, reliability, practicality, and washback. The study highlights the significance of the matriculation examination, evaluates individual test items, and presents the opinions of teachers and students about the test. The results reveal that…

Common test items play an important role in equating multiple test forms under the common-item nonequivalent groups design. Inconsistent item parameter estimates among common items can lead to large bias in equated scores for IRT true score equating. Current methods extensively focus on detection and elimination of outlying common items, which…

The computer-adaptive multistage testing (ca-MST) has been developed as an alternative to computerized adaptive testing (CAT), and been increasingly adopted in large-scale assessments. Current research and practice only focus on ca-MST panels for credentialing purposes. The ca-MST test mode, therefore, is designed to gauge a single scale. The…

This research introduces, illustrates, and tests a variation of IRT-LR-DIF, called EH-DIF-2, in which the latent density for each group is estimated simultaneously with the item parameters as an empirical histogram (EH). IRT-LR-DIF is used to evaluate the degree to which items have different measurement properties for one group of people versus…

Providing information to test takers and test score users about the abilities of test takers at different score levels has been a persistent problem in educational and psychological measurement. Scale anchoring, a technique which describes what students at different points on a score scale know and can do, is a tool to provide such information.…

This article explores how the magnitude and form of differential item functioning (DIF) effects in multiple-choice items are determined by the underlying differential distractor functioning (DDF) effects, as modeled under the nominal response model. The results of a numerical investigation indicated that (a) the presence of one or more nonzero DDF…

The purpose of this study was to develop, scale, and validate assessments in engineering, science, and mathematics with grade appropriate items that were sensitive to the curriculum developed by teachers. The use of item response theory to assess item functioning was a focus of the study. The work is part of a larger project focused on increasing…

Developing and writing assessment items that measure teachers' knowledge is an intricate and complex undertaking. In this paper, we begin with an overview of what is known about measuring teacher knowledge. We then highlight the challenges inherent in creating assessment items that focus specifically on measuring teachers' specialised knowledge…

We ask whether an adult learner's knowledge of their native language impedes statistical learning in a new language beyond just word segmentation (as previously shown). In particular, we examine the impact of native-language word-form phonotactics on learners' ability to segment words into their component morphemes and learn phonologically…

In this article we focus on "false cognates", lexical items that have overlapping orthographic/phonological properties but little or no semantic overlap. False-cognate pairs were created from French (second language or L2) and English (first language or L1) items by manipulating the levels of morphological correspondence between them.…

Chemical representations play an important role in helping learners to understand chemical contents. Thus, dealing with chemical representations is a necessity for learning chemistry, but at the same time, it presents a great challenge to learners. Due to this great challenge, it is not surprising that numerous national and international studies…

This study attempted to develop valid and reliable Capstone Project Attitude Scales (CPAS). Among the scales reviewed, the Modified Fennema-Shermann Mathematics Attitude Scales was adapted in the construction of the CPAS. Usefulness, Confidence, and Gender View were the three subscales of the CPAS. Four hundred sixty-three students answered the…

The School Counseling Program Report Card--Student Version is a program evaluation tool designed to capture high school student perceptions of school counseling services. This article describes the initial instrument development process. Exploratory factor analysis (N = 305) yielded a 22-item instrument with three subscales that mirror the ASCA…

For decades, standardized reading comprehension tests have consisted of a series of passages and associated multiple-choice questions. Although widely used in and out of the classroom, there continues to be considerable disagreement regarding how or whether such tests have net value in the service of advancing educational progress in reading. This…

In an attempt to compare how orthography and phonology interact in EFL learners with different reading abilities, online measures were administered in this study to two groups of university learners, indexed by their reading scores on the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC). In terms of "accuracy," the less-skilled…