Differential Item Functioning (DIF) detection procedures provide validity evidence for proposed interpretations of test scores that can help researchers and practitioners ensure that test scores are free from potential bias, and that individual items do not create an advantage for any subgroup of examinees over another. In this study, we use the…

Past research suggests revised parallel analysis (R-PA) tends to yield relatively accurate results in determining the number of factors in exploratory factor analysis. R-PA can be interpreted as a series of hypothesis tests. At each step in the series, a null hypothesis is tested that an additional factor accounts for zero common variance among…

Reliability is the consistency of a set of scores that are designed to measure the same thing. Reliability is a statistical property of scores that must be demonstrated rather than assumed.

According to Wollack and Schoenig (2018), score differencing is one of six types of statistical methods used to detect test fraud. In this paper, we suggested the use of Bayes factors (e.g., Kass & Raftery, 1995) for score differencing. A simulation study shows that the suggested approach performs slightly better than an existing frequentist…

In Winter 2021-2022, the Nebraska Student-Centered Assessment System (NSCAS) assessments are administered in ELA and mathematics in Grades 3-8. In Spring 2021-2022, the NSCAS assessments are administered in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics in Grades 3-8 and in science in Grades 5 and 8. The purposes of the NSCAS assessments are to…

Test-optional admissions policies have been steadily, though slowly, expanding throughout higher education institutions for decades. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, sparked a rapid expansion of institutions adopting test-optional policy. Using a diffusion of innovations framework, this study assesses the institutional characteristics that shaped…

Background: Research into online exams in higher education has grown significantly, especially as they became common practice during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, previous studies focused on understanding individual factors that relate to students' dispositions towards online exams in 'traditional' universities. Moreover, there is little…

University First Year Seminar (FYS) programs are diverse in their content and pedagogy. Yet all seek to assist first-year students in the difficult college transition. The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate if grouping similar academic majors into the existing First Year Seminar (FYS) courses would improve social connectedness, use of…

Young children tend to rely on reactive cognitive control (e.g. strongly slow down after an error), even when task accuracy would benefit from proactive cognitive control (taking a slower task approach up front). We investigated if giving young primary school children opportunities to repeatedly experience tasks where success rates depend on…

Corpus-based studies have offered the domain definition inference for test developers. Yet, corpus-based studies on temporal fluency measures (e.g., speech rate) have been limited, especially in the context of academic lecture settings. This made it difficult for test developers to sample representative fluency features to create authentic…

Administrative data are increasingly being used to study inequalities in education. Yet a well-known difficulty with such resources is the limited information they hold. A commonly used proxy for children coming from a low-income background is their eligibility for free school meals, yet this is likely to be of little use in measuring academic…

Testing practices and the construct of English both serve separately and interactionally to promote activities of modernity and coloniality. Tests categorize and rank learning and knowledge in discrete, static ways. The construct of the English language through standardization and other processes upholds linguistic purism ideologies. Such concerns…

Upon hearing a novel label, listeners tend to assume that it refers to a novel, rather than a familiar object. While this disambiguation or mutual exclusivity (ME) effect has been robustly shown across development, it is unclear what it involves. Do listeners use their pragmatic and lexical knowledge to exclude the familiar object and thus select…

The study aims to assess online assessment practices in a public university, addressing questions about self-efficacy levels, tools used, challenges faced, and proposed solutions. The chosen methodology employs a cross-sectional survey design, collecting both quantitative and qualitative data from 50 instructors in Türkiye through a convenience…

This study addresses the important yet underexplored question of whether the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics, which emphasize critical thinking and problem-solving, as well as the computer-based assessments aligned with the Common Core, have facilitated or hindered learning for students with disabilities. By analyzing administrative…