Attempted to relate content features of personality items to item parameter estimates from the partial credit model of E. Muraki (1990) by administering the Adjective Checklist (L. Goldberg, 1992) to 329 undergraduates. As predicted, the discrimination parameter was related to the item subtlety ratings of personality items but the level of word…

Discusses the comparison of groups of individuals who were administered different forms of a test. Focuses on the situation in which there is little overlap in content between the test forms. Reviews equating problems in national tests in Canada and Israel. (SLD)

Analysis of literature on oral assessment in college instruction identified six dimensions: primary content type; interaction between examiner and learner; authenticity of assessment task; structure of assessment task; examiner; and orality (extent to which knowledge is tested orally). These help in understanding the nature of oral assessment and…

Used two different coherent cut kinetics taxonomic procedures to examine the latent structure of responses to a survey of library service quality using an unnumbered slider-bar user interface and a radio-button user interface. Results for 354 college students show that both interfaces yield similar latent structures of survey item responses. (SLD)

Describes the performance of eighth graders on 37 questions from the National Assessment of Educational Progress 1998 Civics Assessment and indicates percentages of students answering given questions correctly. Includes samples of students' written responses. (Author/SLD)

In educational settings, achievement is one of the most significant factors for assessing the effectiveness of the educational institution, being the criterion used to evaluate the performance of individuals and institutions. The score obtained from an achievement test provides primarily two types of information: one is the degree to which the…

Complete response vectors of all answer options in multiple-choice items can be used to estimate ability. The rising selection ratios criterion is necessary for scoring individuals because it implies that estimated ability always increases when the correct alternative is selected. This paper introduces the generalized DLT model, which assumes…

In this article the author presents a model that shows how inquiry-based instruction and creative classroom assessment can be used to teach the concepts and principles on which standardized test items are based. To successfully implement this model, the teacher must have a clear understanding of: (1) The ways that the NSES link to instruction and…

The information function is an important statistic in item response theory (IRT) applications. Although the information function is often described as the IRT version of reliability, it differs from the classical notion of reliability from a critical perspective: replication. This article first explores the information function for the…

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate how cognitive and measurement principles can be integrated to create an essentially unidimensional test. Two studies were conducted. In Study 1, test questions were created by using the feature integration theory of attention to develop a cognitive model of performance and then manipulating complexity…

The purpose of this study was to determine how judgments of solo performances recorded at an international piano competition might be affected by excerpt duration (20 versus 60 seconds) and tempo (slow versus fast). Musicians rated performances on six test items. Results indicated that piano majors rated slow excerpts higher than they rated fast…

Testing is essential in education and other social science fields because many assessments, decisions, and policies are made according to the results of testing. The purpose of testing is to estimate a person's ability, that is, latent trait or construct. In a test setting, responses to a set of test items by each individual are recorded. Through…

This article presents a methodology for examining the content and nature of item parcels as indicators of a conceptually defined latent construct. An essential component of this methodology is the 2-facet measurement model, which includes items and parcels as facets of construct indicators. The 2-facet model tests assumptions required for…

Differential item functioning (DIF) analyses are used to identify items that operate differently between two groups, after controlling for ability. The Simultaneous Item Bias Test (SIBTEST) is a popular DIF detection method that matches examinees on a true score estimate of ability. However in some testing situations, like test translation and…

For (0, 1) scored multiple-choice tests, a formula giving test reliability as a function of the number of item options is derived, assuming the "knowledge or random guessing model," the parallelism of the new and old tests (apart from the guessing probability), and the assumptions of classical test theory. It is shown that the formula is a more…