The Broad-Range Tailored Test (BRTT) is a computerized adaptive test. Each testee responds to 25 items; at the conclusion of the test the computer calculates a verbal ability score for the individual. The test was designed to yield a verbal ability score from the fifth grade level to the graduate school level. Two forms of the BRTT were…

Volunteer college students were assigned to one of six computer administered vocabulary tests, one half with immediate knowledge of results (KR) after responding to each item, and the other half without knowledge of results. The six tests were designed to be at one of three levels of difficulty and consisted either of 50 preselected items…

A study involving four sections of a general psychology course at Delta College (Michigan) was conducted to determine: (1) the effectiveness of repeated, cumulative testing on long-term retention of information; (2) its effect on students' ability to generalize information learned as measured by the College Level Examination Program (CLEP) general…

A computerized adaptive testing model was applied to a hierarchically arranged series of subtests within the instructional context of a technical education system. The model was a modification of Lord's flexilevel paradigm; however, it did not allow for individualized entry. Two achievement tests, each divided into five hierarchically related…

This report examines how selection fairness is influenced by the characteristics of a selection instrument in terms of its distribution of item difficulties, level of item discrimination, degree of item bias, and testing strategy. Computer simulation was used in the administration of either a conventional or Bayesian adaptive ability test to a…

The study investigated the effects of exposure to computer-assisted testing (CAT) as an effective instructional method and its effects on attitudes toward computer-assisted instruction (CAI). Five computer quizzes consisting of 20 randomly drawn multiple-choice questions were individually administered on 10 teletype terminals. A feedback mechanism…

The effects of providing immediate knowledge of results (KR) and adaptive testing on test anxiety and test-taking motivation were investigated. Also studied was the accuracy of student perceptions of the difficulty of adaptive and conventional tests administered with or without immediate knowledge of results. Testees were 350 college students…

Two types of computer-administered unit quizzes in a systematic pathology course for second-year medical students were compared. Quizzes composed of questions selected on the basis of a student's ability had higher correlations with the final examination than did quizzes composed of questions randomly selected from topic areas. (Author/JAZ)

The assessment framework underlying a science performance monitoring program is process-oriented and intended to appeal to generalizability theory for a suitable estimation paradigm. Preliminary applications are described. Results suggest that computerized question-banking, domain-sampling of questions, and generalizablity theory together provide…

Item parameter estimates vary for a variety of reasons, including estimation error, characteristics of the examinee samples, and context effects (e.g., item location effects, section location effects, etc.). Although we expect variation based on theory, there is reason to believe that observed variation in item parameter estimates exceeds what…

The availability of item response times made possible by computerized testing represents an entirely new type of information about test items. This study explores the issue of how to represent response-time information in item banks. Empirical response-time distribution functions can be fit with statistical distribution functions with known…

The original data strategy on which PISA was based suggested that, after the completion of the first three assessments in 2000, 2003 and 2006, the cycle would repeat itself with three-yearly assessments in the areas of reading, mathematics and science. However, in light of newly emerging policy priorities and the experience gained with PISA so…

Evaluating the comparability of a test administered in different languages is a difficult, if not impossible, task. Comparisons are problematic because observed differences in test performance between groups who take different language versions of a test could be due to a difference in difficulty between the tests, to cultural differences in test…

The extensive computer simulation work done in developing the computer adaptive versions of the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) Board General Test and the College Board Admissions Testing Program (ATP) Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is described in this report. Both the GRE General and SAT computer adaptive tests (CATs), which are fixed length…

The Law School Admission Council (LSAC) is currently investigating the feasibility and advisability of administering a computerized Law School Admission Test (LSAT). In this context, using data from the College Boards 1989 National Advanced Placement (AP) Chemistry Examination for 18,462 test takers and a survey of all AP Chemistry teachers in…