Standard approaches for estimating item response theory (IRT) model parameters generally work under the assumption that the latent trait being measured by a set of items follows the normal distribution. Estimation of IRT parameters in the presence of nonnormal latent traits has been shown to generate biased person and item parameter estimates. A…

The aim of this study is to determine variance difference between maximum likelihood and expected A posteriori estimation methods viewed from number of test items of aptitude test. The variance presents an accuracy generated by both maximum likelihood and Bayes estimation methods. The test consists of three subtests, each with 40 multiple-choice…

This study gathered quantitative and qualitative evidence concerning gender differences in performance by using critical reading material on the "SAT"® test with sports and science content. The fundamental research questions guiding the study were: If sports and science are to be included in a skills test, what kinds of material are…

This paper presents a non-parametric imputation technique, named random forest, from the machine learning field. The random forest procedure has two main tuning parameters: the number of trees grown in the prediction and the number of predictors used. Fifty experimental conditions were created in the imputation procedure, with different…

In the Manchester Pharmacy School, we first adopted summative on-line examinations in 2005. Since then, we have increased the range of question types to include short answers, short essays and questions incorporating chemical structures and we achieve time savings of up to 90% in the marking process. Online assessments allow two novel forms of…

Plausible distractors are important for accurate measurement of knowledge via multiple-choice questions (MCQs). This study demonstrates the impact of higher distractor functioning on validity and reliability of scores obtained on MCQs. Freeresponse (FR) and MCQ versions of a neurohistology practice exam were given to four cohorts of Year 1 medical…

The purpose of this study is to evaluate two methodological perspectives of test fairness using a national Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations. SSC is a suit of multi-subject national qualification tests at Grade 10 level in South Asian countries, such as Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Because it is a high-stakes test, the fairness…

Our nation is in the midst of one of the largest education reforms in decades centered on the adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and aligned assessments. In an era of rising accountability measures and declining literacy proficiency, it is vital to ensure that educational resources, such as benchmark assessments, are appropriately…

This report outlines the development, methodology, and results of the split-half administration of the 2015 School Crime Supplement (SCS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The National Center for…

This study reports initial findings from a small-scale qualitative study aimed at gaining insights into English language teachers' assessment practices in Turkey by examining the formal exam papers. Based on the technique of content analysis, formal exam papers were analyzed in terms of assessment items, language skills tested as well as the…

Learning chemistry is a hard task for many secondary school students; thus, students find it tough to score better marks in chemistry. Researchers have identified many reasons and suggested lots of alternatives to overcome difficulties in chemistry. This paper focuses on whether the test item construction has any role in the response pattern of…

Writing anxiety is one of the most essential factors influencing language learning. The current study is to explore the effect of sentence-making practice on reducing writing anxiety of two classes of adult EFL learners, one in low-intermediate level (LI learners), the other in high-intermediate level (HI learners). Two classes received two-week…

Laboratory studies have established a negative relationship between the color red and academic performance. This research examined whether this effect would generalize to classroom performance and whether anxiety and negative affect might mediate the effect. In two studies, students taking classroom exams were randomly assigned an exam color. We…

The present study was motivated by the recognition that standard errors (SEs) of item response theory (IRT) model parameters are often of immediate interest to practitioners and that there is currently a lack of comparative research on different SE (or error variance-covariance matrix) estimation procedures. The present study investigated item…

In this study, we contrast results from two differential item functioning (DIF) approaches (manifest and latent class) by the number of items and sources of items identified as DIF using data from an international reading assessment. The latter approach yielded three latent classes, presenting evidence of heterogeneity in examinee response…