Brett Vogelsinger, a high school English teacher, describes his experiences of frustrations of test preparation and the excitement of a good story at the same time. The discovering of drama with eight-graders is a good example of how teachers, novice and veterans can create opportunities for deep and meaningful engagement in all kinds of…

Although cognitive diagnostic models (CDMs) can be useful in the analysis and interpretation of existing tests, little has been developed to specify how one might construct a good test using aspects of the CDMs. This article discusses the derivation of a general CDM index based on Kullback-Leibler information that will serve as a measure of how…

McNulty, Harkness, Ben-Porath and Williams recently developed Personality Psychopathology Five (PSY-5) scales for the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory A (MMPI-A). This study examined these new scales in a sample of 545 adolescents receiving inpatient psychiatric treatment. Item-level principal components analyses were employed to…

Computer-based testing by credentialing agencies has become common; however, selecting a test design is difficult because several good ones are available - parallel forms, computer adaptive (CAT), and multistage (MST). In this study, three computer-based test designs under some common examination conditions were investigated. Item bank size and…

The valid provision of subscores from an item response theory-based test implies a multidimensional test structure. Assuming, in the construction of a new test, that the test features required for a valid and reliable total test score have been specified already, this article describes the resulting subscore performance and the resulting…

Describes the development and testing of the School Functioning Index (SFI) for middle schools to use in predicting students' violent behavior. The final SFI included nine items and demonstrated good internal consistency and variability. It was modestly correlated in expected directions with violence and other health behavior. Results support the…

This article describes the design and development of the International Test Commission's (ITC, this issue) Guidelines for Computer-Based and Internet-Delivered Testing. It examines some of the reasons why the ITC Council decided to invest in a program of research, consultation, and conferences designed to develop internationally agreed-on…

The Internet has opened up a whole new set of opportunities for advancing the science of psychometrics and the technology of testing. It has also created some new challenges for those of us involved in test design and testing. In particular, we are seeing impacts from internationalization of testing and new models for test delivery. These are…

The College Board's Advanced Placement European History examination has evolved over the course of its first half-century of existence in virtually all respects: the types and subject matter of questions asked (and not asked); the nature of the history those questions reflect; the number of questions both offered and to be answered, as well as how…

One of the primary themes of the National Research Council's 2001 book "Knowing What Students Know" was the importance of cognition as a component of assessment design and measurement theory (NRC, 2001). One reaction to the book has been an increased use of sophisticated statistical methods to model cognitive information available in test data.…

This study gives results of the first phase of the 12-18 year old Turkish students' norm study of The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), which developed by Pintrich, Smith, Garcia & McKeachie (1993). The scale was administrated to 1114 students from 3 primary schools and 3 high schools in Ankara in Turkish language,…

Today's institutions of higher education are facing an increased number of significant challenges taking place in the political, economic, social and technological environment. Accordingly, the issues of performance, accountability, and marketing strategies have become ever more important. It has been suggested that universities that are more…

Based on the results of a generalizability study (G study) of measures of teacher knowledge for teaching mathematics developed at The National Center for Research, on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) at the University of California, Los Angeles, this report provides evidence that teachers are better at drawing reasonable…

This study is concerned with different forms of assessment of pupils' skills in experimentation. The findings of three studies are reported. Study 1 investigates whether it is possible to develop reliable multiple-choice tests for the skills of forming hypotheses, designing experiments and analysing experimental data. Study 2 compares scores from…

The primary purpose of this article is to describe the development and utility of the Social Interaction Practices for the Preschool Years (SIPPY) questionnaire. The SIPPY is a tool designed to assess teachers' judgments of the acceptability and feasibility, as well as their current use, of literature-supported strategies for promoting the…