The Board of Registry (BOR) certifies medical technologists and other laboratory personnel. The BOR has studied adaptive testing for over 6 years and now administers all 17 BOR certification examinations using computerized adaptive testing (CAT). This paper presents an overview of the major research efforts from 1989 to the present related to test…

Test-taking skills and methods used to prepare students for taking an examination are independent of knowledge and skills in the content area being tested. Test-taking skills do not give students the correct answers, but do allow the student to concentrate on answering questions without being confused by the mechanics of the test. Students who…

A series of computer simulations was run to measure the relationship between testlet validity and the factors of item pool size and testlet length for both adaptive and linearly constructed testlets. Results confirmed the generality of earlier empirical findings of H. Wainer and others (1991) that making a testlet adaptive yields only marginal…

The degree to which item review on a computerized adaptive test (CAT) could be used by examinees to inflate their scores artificially was studied. G. G. Kingsbury (1996) described a strategy in which examinees could use the changes in item difficulty during a CAT to determine which items' answers are incorrect and should be changed during item…

More attention is currently being paid to the distractors of a multiple-choice test item (Thissen, Steinberg, and Fitzpatrick, 1989). A systematic relationship exists between the keyed response and distractors in multiple-choice items (Levine and Drasgow, 1983). New scoring methods have been introduced, computer programs developed, and research…

The traditional concept of validity divides it into three separate types; content, criterion, and construct validities. This view is fragmented and incomplete, failing to take into account evidence of the value implications of score meaning as a basis for action and of the social consequences of score use. The new unified concept of validity…

The summary information in this report provides teachers, school administrators, students and the general public with an overview of results from the January 1997 administration of the Social Studies 30 Diploma Examination for the province of Alberta, Canada. The summary is divided into: (1) description of the examination; (2) achievement of…

This position paper from the Research, Evaluation, and Accreditation Committee of the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) presents a description of the Academic Decathlon program and offers recommendations for improving the program and ways that ACSA can assist the program. The description of the Academic Decathlon, a ten-event…

Britain's Associated Examining Board for the General Certificate of Education believes that an examination taken by adults should provide room for the use of experience. The article provides two examples of the Board's courses illustrating that policy: "Living Decisions" (based on a BBC series) and "English Language for Mature…

Thirty introductory psychology students were randomly divided into two groups. The control group took a standard in-class printed examination. The treatment group was provided with both exam booklets and individual sets of audio equipment on which exam questions were recorded. The treatment group scored significantly higher. (NHM)

Suggests ways of bringing "sanity" to standardized testing. For instance, no standardized test should ever be administered for purposes of establishing scholastic pecking orders, and the agency that administers a standardized test must determine the relationship between measured ability and measured achievement. (Author/IRT)

The University of Illinois School of Basic Medical Sciences, Urbana-Champaign, curriculum incorporates over 2,000 specific learning objectives in 11 basic science disciplines and multiple learning experiences for each of the 360 self-study units. (Author/PG)

Testing and assessment have become extremely important components of the educational program. The purpose of this position paper is to provide factual and policy-related information that may be of use to school boards as they design or improve their districts' testing and assessment policies. It is the New York State policy that school boards…

This list of resources for use in classrooms and media centers as well as for individual use describes a range of materials about preparing for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). It does not include every available resource, however. Only items submitted by publishers or vendors within a specified time period and that received positive…

A method is proposed that increases the accuracies of estimation of the operating characteristics of discrete item responses, especially when the true operating characteristic is represented by a steep curve, and also at the lower and upper ends of the ability distribution where the estimation tends to be inaccurate because of the smaller number…