Computer adaptive testing is intended to make assessment more reliable by tailoring the difficulty of the questions a student has to answer to their level of ability. Most commonly, this benefit is used to justify the length of tests being shortened whilst retaining the reliability of a longer, non-adaptive test. Improvements due to adaptive…

Although end of course exams remain a key mode of assessment in higher education, little research has focused on international students' experiences of exams. There seems to be a tacit assumption in most literature that exam preparation and strategies are universal, although differences in other areas of learning exist. As an exemplar, this…

Despite a number of research studies investigating the Yes-No vocabulary test format, one main question remains unanswered: What is the best scoring procedure to adjust for testee overestimation of vocabulary knowledge? Different scoring methodologies have been proposed based on the inclusion and selection of nonwords in the test. However, there…

Background: Strand, Deary, and Smith (2006) reported an analysis of sex differences on the Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT) for over 320,000 UK students 11-12 years old. Although mean differences were small, males were overrepresented at the upper and lower extremes of the score distributions on the quantitative and non-verbal batteries and at the…

Approaches to studying were investigated in 227 U.S. college students using a short form of the Approaches to Studying Inventory. The factor structure of responses differed from that previously obtained in the United Kingdom, suggesting that basic study orientations are interpreted in a manner distinct to each cultural context. (SLD)