Time limits on tests often prevent some examinees from finishing all of the items on the test; the extent of this effect has been called the "speededness" of the test. Traditional speededness indices focus on the number of unreached items. Other examinees in the same situation rapidly fill in answers in the hope of getting some of the…

Undertaken at the request of the U.S. Employment Service (USES), this study assesses the validity and fairness of the General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB). The U.S. Department of Labor is considering whether to promote the use of the GATB throughout the USES to screen many of the 19 million persons passing through the system annually in search of…

The psychometric characteristics of the Graduate Record Examinations General Test (GRE-GT) were studied for three handicapped groups. Experimental subjects took the GRE-GT between October 1981 and June 1984; they include: (1) 151 visually-impaired students taking large-type, extended-time administrations; (2) 188 visually-impaired students taking…

The previous theoretical development of the Poisson process as a strong model for the true-score theory of mental tests is discussed, and additional theoretical properties of the model from the standpoint of individual examinees are developed. The paper introduces the Erlang process as a family of test theory models and shows in the context of…

This study examined the score level, extent of test completion, and test reliability for visually impaired, physically handicapped, and nonhandicapped groups taking the Graduate Record Examinations General Test. Results included the finding that performance of visually handicapped groups approximated that of nondisabled examinees, although…

A study of the Types of Preferred Examinations (TOPE) in secondary school science students was done according to school type and gender. Findings show students prefer written, open book, unlimited time examinations which, they perceive, stress understanding rather than rote learning and that teachers, aware of student preferences, continue to use…

We consider human performance on an optimal stopping problem where people are presented with a list of numbers independently chosen from a uniform distribution. People are told how many numbers are in the list, and how they were chosen. People are then shown the numbers one at a time, and are instructed to choose the maximum, subject to the…

This study examined the effects of extra time on the reading comprehension performance of a heterogeneous group of adults with reading disabilities. Sixty-four adults participated. A clinic that assesses learning disabilities identified 22 as reading disabled, and 42 as normal readers. The 64 adults took a reading comprehension test under both…

Forty-one students in two third grade classes, including special education students, participated in an action research project conducted jointly by two university supervisors, three teachers, and three student teachers. The "Minute Math" project involved students in predicting and graphing their test scores on a weekly conventional timed test of…

As children develop, they process information more rapidly. The primary aim of this study was to determine whether processing speed in the language domain develops at the same rate as global processing speed. A second aim was to determine the stability of processing speed throughout childhood and adolescence. Children (N = 116) were tested on 10…

In order to establish a tertiary educational sector that is able to provide equal opportunities to all students, it is vital that institutions diversify curriculum delivery and course assessment strategies. Although it may appear impractical to develop a course that takes into consideration the various learning preferences of all individuals,…

The relationship between test item characteristics and testing time was studied for a computer-administered licensing examination. One objective of the study was to develop a model to predict testing time on the basis of known item characteristics. Response latencies (i.e., the amount of time taken by examinees to read, review, and answer items)…

The scores of students with disabilities who took the ACT Assessment at least twice, and at least once under extended-time guidelines, were studied. The investigation identified three groups of students. The first group was composed of 3,410 students who tested at least twice under extended-time guidelines. The second group of 3,439 students…

The appropriateness of using time limits when measuring students' competence is questionable. This study assessed whether students who had failed the College Level Academic Skills Test (CLAST) could improve their performance if they were allowed additional time on retaking the test. Subjects were 641 students who took the CLAST from fall 1982…

Ninety-two subjects solved a series of problems without enough time to finish and worked at a pace and in an order determined by the experimenter (Experimenter- Paced) or at their own pace and order under self-administered time deadlines (Self-Paced). Self-pacing resulted in superior performance on rote and poorer performance on cognitive problems…