Time limits on some computer-adaptive tests (CATs) are such that many examinees have difficulty finishing, and some examinees may be administered tests with more time-consuming items than others. Results from over 100,000 examinees suggested that about half of the examinees must guess on the final six questions of the analytical section of the…

Writing assessment essentially juxtaposes two elements: how "good writing" is to be defined, and how "good measurement" of that writing is to be carried out. The timed test is often used in large-scale L2 writing assessments because it is considered to provide reliable measurement. It is, however, highly inauthentic. One way of enhancing…

Response accuracy and response speed provide separate measures of performance. Psychometricians have tended to focus on accuracy with the goal of characterizing examinees on the basis of their ability to respond correctly to items from a given content domain. With the advent of computerized testing, response times can now be recorded unobtrusively…

The effect of time limits on the completion rate of 8,290 students taking the reading comprehension section of the Academic Assessment and Placement Program (AAPP) was studied. The AAPP is a Tennessee configuration of items drawn from the College Board's multiple assessment programs and services item pool. It is a battery of tests used for…

The role of a hypothetical metalinguistic semantic component is assessed and contrasted with the role of a semantic component derived from the very words on the printed page, and this in turn is contrasted with the influence of the graphemic, pattern analyzing component of sentence memory. (Author/DEP)

An exploratory study was designed to determine the amount and accuracy of symbol output that may occur in a fixed time when elementary school children are asked to copy from a page they have neither seen before nor will be given a chance to study. For two minutes, a total of 194 fourth, sixth, and eighth grade students copied an unfamiliar prose…

Composing in writing is a complex psycholinguistic process about which very little is known. Nearly all of the research on composing in writing has looked at the written product, not at the process by which it came into being. This document reviews past research on the composing process and proposes a study in which video cameras would record…

Three related experimental studies analyzed rate and accuracy of test response under time-limit and no-time-limit conditions. Test instructions and multiple-choice vocabulary items were administered by computer. Student volunteers received monetary rewards under both testing conditions. In the first study college students were blocked into high-…

To assess the effects of timed/untimed testing conditions on intelligence scores, high school students were assigned to an intelligence test under either conditions and subsequently to a battery of eight reaction time tests. Results showed that subjects scores were related to the speed with which they processed information. (JAZ)

A study was conducted to determine if providing additional time to complete classroom tests increases the test scores of college students with learning disabilities. Whether the accommodation allows the extra time necessary for students with learning disabilities to process the information, leveling the playing field, or whether it creates a…

Two experiments reproduced in a simulated computerized test-taking situation the effect of two of the main determinants in answering an item in a test: the difficulty of the item and the time available to answer it. A model is proposed for the time to respond or abandon an item and for the probability of abandoning it or answering it correctly. In…

The number of students requesting accommodations has increased in recent years, and the effects of extended time have become increasingly important as this is the only accommodation for 7 of 10 of these students completing the SAT I. Allowing learning disabled students to retest with extended time clearly enables them to improve their SAT I…

The impact of allowing more time for each question on SAT® I: Reasoning Test scores was estimated by embedding sections with a reduced number of questions into the standard 30-minute equating section of two national test administrations. Thus, for example, questions were deleted from a verbal section that contained 35 questions to produce forms…