In the past decades, English learning has received lots of attention all over the world, especially for those who are not native English speakers. Various English learning and testing systems have been developed on the Internet. Nevertheless, most existing English testing systems represent the learning status of a student by assigning that student…

Background: The evidence is now quite clear that bullying in schools is an international problem. Bullying is widely regarded as a particularly destructive form of aggression, with harmful physical, social and emotional outcomes for all involved (bullies, victims and bystanders), and with particular risks for children with special needs. The…

In recent years, tertiary institutions in developed countries have made extensive use of Course Management Systems (CMSs), software packages designed to help educators create online learning communities. To date, however, such packages have been little used in higher education institutions (HEIs) in China. In this article, we describe the…

Formulating-Hypotheses (F-H) items present a situation and ask the examinee to generate as many explanations for it as possible. This study examined the generalizability, validity, and examinee perceptions of a computer-delivered version of the task. Eight F-H questions were administered to 192 graduate students. Half of the items restricted…

Three new computer-administered item types for the analytical scale of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) General Test were developed and evaluated. One item type was a free-response version of the current analytical reasoning item type. The second item type was a somewhat constrained free-response version of the pattern identification (or…

The objective of this study was to assess the degree to which the mode of administration of the computer-based Academic Skills Assessments of the "Praxis Series: Professional Assessments for Beginning Teachers" contributes to performance differences among test takers. Inexperienced or anxious computer users (Praxis pilot sample of 446…

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…

The construction of parallel editions of conventional tests for purposes of test security while maintaining score comparability has always been a recognized and difficult problem in psychometrics and test construction. The introduction of new modes of test construction, e.g., adaptive testing, changes the nature of the problem, but does not make…

Applications of item response theory to practical testing problems including equating, differential item functioning, and computerized adaptive testing, require that item parameter estimates be placed onto a common metric. In this study, three methods for developing a common metric under item response theory are compared: (1) linking separate…

A 1992 study by R. Gershon found discrepancies when comparing the theoretical Rasch item characteristic curve with the average empirical curve for 1,304 vocabulary items administered to 7,711 students. When person-item mismatches were deleted (for any person-item interaction where the ability of the person was much higher or much lower than the…

One of the main limitations of the current generation of computer-based tests is its dependency on the multiple-choice item. This research was aimed at extending computer-based testing by bringing limited forms of performance assessment to it in the domain of mathematics. This endeavor involves not only building task types that better reflect…

The results of a small research project that studied the effect computer administration has on student performance for writing or essay tests are presented. The introduction of computer-administered tests has raised concern about the equivalence of scores generated by computer versus paper-and-pencil test versions. For this study a sample of…

The degree to which laptop and standard-size desktop computers are likely to produce comparable test results for the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) General Test was studied. Verbal, quantitative, and writing sections of a retired version of the GRE were used, since it was expected that performance on reading passages or mathematics items might…

A previous simulation study of methods for assessing item functioning (DIF) in computer-adaptive tests (CATs) showed that modified versions of the Mantel-Haenszel and standardization methods work well with CAT data. In that study, data were generated using the three-parameter logistic (3PL) model, and this same model was assumed in obtaining item…

To function effectively as a learning environment, a simulation system must present learners with situations in which they use relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities. To function effectively as an assessment, such a system must additionally be able to evoke and interpret observable evidence about targeted knowledge in a manner that is…