The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) is the largest nationally representative assessment of what the nation's students know and can do in subjects such as mathematics, reading, science, and writing. The results of NAEP are released as The Nation's Report Card. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), within the U.S.…

Modern trends in educational technology have evidenced the increasing importance of mobile devices in language learning. The need of sophisticated devices that can facilitate lifelong learning wherever the students might be. Facilitating learning, however, implies that students have to be assessed through the same delivery models that are used in…

Although International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement-pioneered international large-scale assessment (ILSA) of education is now a well-established science, non-practitioners and many users often substantially misunderstand how large-scale assessments are conducted, what questions and challenges they are designed to…

This paper examines how different test methods may tap different aspects of second language knowledge. It employs multiple-choice (MC) and constructed response (CR) items which yield distinct or convergent information in the computer delivered testing of English in its presentation of this factor. In order to examine the effects of test method, a…

The practice of including online discussion posts to traditional courses is increasing. Online discussions allow for active learning to occur as students express their ideas and respond to others. The time and thought provided by online discussion posts allows students to utilize higher level cognitive skills. Web-based assessments are another…

This quantitative study extends previous research on the impact of one to one (1:1) laptop environments on student outcomes in English Language Arts (ELA) by focusing on students from various socio-economic backgrounds, while using a new technology-enhanced, state-administered assessment to measure performance. This study is significant because…

When it comes to secure testing online, even high-tech solutions rely on an old standby: a human proctor. This article asks the question: Is such an approach sustainable in the long run? A student labors over a midterm exam while a vigilant proctor peers over his shoulder, watching for any sign of cheating. It sounds like a tableau from a century…

This study compares the progressive-restricted standard error (PR-SE) exposure control procedure to three commonly used procedures in computerized adaptive testing, the randomesque, Sympson-Hetter (SH), and no exposure control methods. The performance of these four procedures is evaluated using the three-parameter logistic model under the…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a universal social skills program, the Social Skills Improvement System Classwide Intervention Program (SSIS-CIP; Elliott & Gresham, 2007), for students in first grade. Classrooms from 6 elementary schools were randomly assigned to treatment or business-as-usual control conditions.…

One of the central considerations in the validity argument for the TOEFL iBT is the relationship between the language on the exam and the language required for university courses. Corpus linguistics has recently been shown to be an effective way to explore this relationship, which can also be considered as an aspect of authenticity. Applying…

In this article, we describe current research findings on assessment accommodations and universal design within the context of emerging interactive digital assessment tasks that employ simulations such as in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). STEM education in many classrooms now includes digitally based activities such as…

The purpose of this sequential mixed method study was to determine if there were differences between central office administrators', school administrators', and bilingual and English as a second language (ESL) teachers' overall and levels of action, self-regulation, and means efficacies, when controlling for years of experience with bilingual and…

Current CAT applications consist of predominantly dichotomous items, and CATs with polytomously scored items are limited. To ascertain the best approach to polytomous CAT, a significant amount of research has been conducted on item selection, ability estimation, and impact of termination rules based on polytomous IRT models. Few studies…

Practical examinations in anatomy are usually conducted on specimens in the anatomy laboratory (referred to here as the "traditional" method). Recently, we have started to administer similar examinations online using the quiz facility in Moodle[TM]. In this study, we compare student scores between two assessment environments viz. online and…

Computerized classification tests (CCTs) often use sequential item selection which administers items according to maximizing psychometric information at a cut point demarcating passing and failing scores. This paper illustrates why this method of item selection leads to the overexposure of a significant number of items, and the performances of…