Since 1973, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has gathered information about student achievement in mathematics. Results of these periodic assessments, produced in print and web-based formats, provide valuable information to a wide variety of audiences. They inform citizens about the nature of students' comprehension of the…

Physicians play a unique role in the adoption of electronic medical records (EMR) within the healthcare organization. As leaders, they are responsible for setting the standards for this new technology within their sphere of influence while concurrently being required to learn and integrate EMR into their own workflow and process as the recipients…

With the rapidly increasing entrance examinations for the School of Continuing education of CUGB, there is an urgent need of the examination papers that have the parallel testing ability for the same academic program. Based on the analysis of parallel factors and the comparison of the manual generated mode and the computer generated mode, the most…

In this article the authors present a confirmatory factor analysis of the Teachers' Attitudes Toward Computers (TAC) and the Teachers' Attitudes Toward Information Technology (TAT) scales by Christensen and Knezek (1996, 1998) using large samples from three states. The TAC was reduced from 98 items and nine factors to 35 items and eight factors,…

Development of learning progressions has been at the forefront of science education for several years. While understanding students' conceptual development toward "big ideas" in science is extremely valuable for researchers, science teachers can also benefit from assessment tools that diagnose their students' trajectories along the learning…

This paper discusses issues related to the design and psychometric work for mixed-format tests --tests containing both multiple-choice (MC) and constructed-response (CR) items. The issues of validity, fairness, reliability and score consistency can be addressed but for mixed-format tests there are many decisions to be made and no examination or…

Our study compared the learning and motivational outcome of one educational approach in two different learning environments, a natural science museum and a classroom, drawing on studies about the effects of field trips on students' learning and motivation. The educational intervention consisted of an introduction phase in the classroom and…

Many consider online courses to be an inferior alternative to traditional face-to-face (f2f) courses because exam cheating is thought to occur more often in online courses. This study examines how the assessment design in online courses contributes to this perception. Following a literature review, the assessment design in a sample of online…

Recently, Gotham et al. ("2007") proposed revised algorithms for the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) with improved diagnostic validity. The aim of the current study was to replicate predictive validity, factor structure, and correlations with age and verbal and nonverbal IQ of the ADOS revised algorithms for Modules 1 and 2…

Despite the growing body of research on writing assessment, little attention has been devoted to developing and validating measures for beginning writers. This study examined the technical adequacy of a Sentence Writing measure with 233 students in kindergarten and first grade. The reliability, validity, and sensitivity to growth were investigated…

In developing alternate assessments based on modified academic achievement standards (AA-MAS), several states have modified existing test items with the aim of enhancing accessibility and reducing difficulty for students with disabilities. Using Grade 8 multiple-choice test items in unmodified and modified forms, two studies examined student…

This article describes the development of the "Triadic Intervention and Evaluation Rating Scale" (TIERS), a 33-item instrument designed to evaluate patterns of parent, service provider, and child interactions during early intervention sessions conducted in natural environments. Twenty-eight parent-provider-child triads were videotaped in home and…

In this study we examined variations of the nonequivalent groups equating design for tests containing both multiple-choice (MC) and constructed-response (CR) items to determine which design was most effective in producing equivalent scores across the two tests to be equated. Using data from a large-scale exam, this study investigated the use of…

The goal of this study was to develop a self-report inventory that measures individual differences in the perceived value of mathematical literacy for general education students. The Mathematics Value Inventory (MVI) is grounded in the Eccles et al. model of achievement-related choices and surveys students' beliefs in four areas: interest, general…

[Slides] presented at the Annual Meeting of National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) in San Diego, CA in April 2009. This presentation describes how the vehicles for gathering student evidence--task models and test specifications--are developed.