Proposed and evaluated a modified version of the maximum Fisher information (MFI) criterion called the nearest-neighbors (NN) criterion. Simulation study results show that NN procedure improved to a moderate extent the undesirable item exposure rates associated with the MFI criterion and keeps sufficient precision in theta estimates. (SLD)

Presents an adaptive approach to multiple significance testing based on the procedure of Y. Benjamini and Y. Hochberg (1995) that first estimates the number of true null hypotheses and then uses that estimate in the Benjamini and Hochberg procedure. Uses the new procedure in examples from educational and behavioral studies and shows its control of…

Demonstrates the use of Rasch analysis in the job task analysis of a nursing certification examination taken by 427 individuals. (SLD)

Reading difficulties and disabilities present serious and potentially lifelong challenges. Children who do not read well are more likely to be retained a grade in school, drop out of high school, become a teen parent, or enter the juvenile justice system. Building on the extant research and seminal studies, including the National Reading Panel and…

Multiple intelligences, with its hypothesis and implementation, have ascended to a prominent status among the many instructional methodologies. Meanwhile, pedagogical theories and concepts are in need of more alternative and interactive assessments to prove their prevalence (Kinugasa, Yamashita, Hayashi, Tominaga, & Yamasaki, 2005). In general,…

Computerized adaptive testing in personality assessment can improve efficiency by significantly reducing the number of items administered to answer an assessment question. Two approaches have been explored for adaptive testing in computerized personality assessment: item response theory and the countdown method. In this article, the authors…

Monte Carlo methodologies are frequently applied to study the sampling distribution of the estimated proficiency level in adaptive testing. These methods eliminate real situational constraints. However, these Monte Carlo methodologies are not currently supported by the available software programs, and when these programs are available, their…

This study compared several item exposure control procedures for computerized adaptive test (CAT) systems based on a three-parameter logistic testlet response theory model (X. Wang, E. Bradlow, and H. Wainer, 2002) and G. Masters' (1982) partial credit model using real data from the Verbal Reasoning section of the Medical College Admission Test.…

Computer-based testing places great burdens on all involved parties to ensure test security. A task analysis of test site security might identify the areas of protecting the test, protecting the data, and protecting the environment as essential issues in test security. Protecting the test involves transmission of the examinations, identifying the…

Combined the methods of alpha-stratified adaptive testing and constrained adaptive testing with shadow tests. Outlines the advantages of this approach in reducing overexposure and underexposure of items in an item pool and illustrates these advantages with an example from the Law School Admission Test. (SLD)

Compared the properties of five methods of item exposure control in the context of estimating examinees' abilities in a computerized adaptive testing situation. Findings show advantages to the Stocking and Lewis conditional multinomial procedure (M. Stocking and C. Lewis, 1995) and, to a lesser degree, the Davy and Parshall method (T. Davey and C.…

Evaluated three strategies for assigning examinees to grading categories in computerized adaptive testing. The expected a posteriori-based method had more correct classifications in the middle range of grade levels and more errors for the extremes than the golden section search grading test and the Z-score grading test. (SLD)

Cognitive diagnosis (CD) plays an important role in intelligent tutoring system. Computerized adaptive testing (CAT) is adaptive, fair, and efficient, which is suitable to large-scale examination. Traditional cognitive diagnostic test needs quite large number of items, the efficient and tailored CAT could be a remedy for it, so the CAT with…

On a general level, the objective of diagnostic classifications models (DCMs) lies in a classification of individuals regarding multiple latent skills. In this article, the authors show that this objective can be achieved by multidimensional adaptive testing (MAT) as well. The authors discuss whether or not the restricted applicability of DCMs can…

Educators are becoming more aware of the limitations of testing that simply measures student achievement at a single point in time, such as benchmark tests, locally constructed formative tests, conventional standardized tests, and state assessments used to determine adequate yearly progress under No Child Left Behind. Not surprisingly, school…