The purpose of this study (1,313 college student participants) was to examine the differences in paper-based and Web-based administrations of a commonly used assessment instrument, the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) (D. Hestenes, M. Wells, and G. Swackhamer, 1992). Results demonstrated no appreciable difference on FCI scores or FCI items based on…

The Delaware Student Testing Program (DSTP) is designed to assess progress toward the Delaware Content Standards. Every year a certain number of items are removed from the test and then selected for public release. This booklet contains items released from the 2001 administration of the DSTP Science tests for grades 8 and 11. It contains examples…

This guide contains materials to help Delaware educators understand and use reports from the Delaware Student Testing Program (DSTP). The DSTP tests are tied to the Delaware content standards that define the knowledge and skills required for students to progress beyond high school. In spring 2003, the DSTP reading, writing, and mathematics tests…

This paper is concerned with statistical issues in differential item functioning (DIF). Four subsets of large scale performance assessment data from the Georgia Kindergarten Assessment Program-Revised (N=105,731; N=10,000; N=1,00; and N=100) were analyzed using three DIF detection methods for polytomous items to examine the congruence among the…

Development of the test instrument in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) was based on the expertise of many researchers, including "distinguished scholars from 10 countries" who participated on the TIMSS Subject Matter Advisory Committee. However, a close examination of the TIMSS Science items suggests that not…

Instruments measuring Carl Jung's (1921/1971) theory of psychological types have been widely used in various counseling contexts. The most popular measure of types has been the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (K. Briggs and I. Myers). This measure has been criticized for dichotomous scoring, forced-choice response formats, and differential gender…

Methods are discussed that can be used to investigate the fit of an item score pattern to a test model. Model-based tests and personality inventories are administered to more than 100 million people a year and, as a result, individual fit is of great concern. Item Response Theory (IRT) modeling and person-fit statistics that are formulated in the…

Judgmental standard setting methods, such as the Angoff method (W. Angoff, 1971), use item performance estimates as the basis for determining the minimum passing score (MPS). Therefore the accuracy of these item performance estimates is crucial to the validity of the resulting MPS. Recent researchers (L. Shepard, 1994; J. Impara, 1997) have called…

The logistic positive exponent family (LPEF) of models has been proposed by F. Samejima (1998) for dichotomous responses. This family of models is characterized by point-asymmetric item characteristic curves (ICCs). This paper introduces the LPEF family, and discusses its usefulness in educational measurement and the implications of its use.…

This paper describes a work in progress on a second edition of "Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, The Classification of Educational Goals, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain," also known as "Bloom's Taxonomy" (B. Bloom and others, Eds., 1956). The new edition will be grounded in the collective wisdom of the original…

Because scores on high-stakes tests influence many decisions, tests need to be secure. Decisions based on scores affected by preknowledge of items are unacceptable. New methods are needed to detect the new cheating strategies used for computer-administered tests because item pools are typically used over time, providing the potential opportunity…

This document contains samples and explanations from Colorado's state reading and writing comprehension test for Grade 7, hereby released to the public (parents, teachers, and any other interested parties). It presents one multiple-choice reading comprehension item based upon a poem and includes the correct answers. Next, it presents two short…

The analytically derived expected asymptotic standard errors (SEs) of maximum likelihood (ML) item estimates can be predicted by a mathematical function without examinees' responses to test items. The empirically determined SEs of marginal maximum likelihood estimation/Bayesian item estimates can be obtained when the same set of items is…

This document is part of a series of materials meant to promote understanding of the knowledge and skills students must have and the kinds of work they must produce to be successful on the GEE 21. The GEE 21 English Language Arts test is composed of four parts: Writing, Using Information Resources, Reading and Responding, and Proofreading.

Statistical procedures for detecting differential item functioning (DIF) are often used as an initial step to screen items for construct irrelevant variance. This research applies a DIF dissection method and a two-way classification scheme to SAT Reasoning Test™ verbal section data and explores the effects of deleting sizable DIF items on reported…