The Many-Facet Rasch (MFR) Model is traditionally used to evaluate the quality of ratings on constructed response assessments; however, it can also be used to evaluate the quality of judgments from panel-based standard setting procedures. The current study illustrates the use of the MFR Model by examining the quality of ratings obtained from a…

Developing a cognitive model of task performance is an important and often overlooked phase in assessment design; failing to establish such a model can threaten the validity of the inferences made from the scores produced by an assessment (e.g., Leighton, 2004). Conducting think aloud interviews (TAIs), where students think aloud while completing…

[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.

There is much debate on the merits and pitfalls of standardized tests for college admission, with questions regarding the format (multiple-choice versus constructed response), cognitive complexity, and content of these assessments (achievement versus aptitude) at the forefront of the discussion. This study addressed these questions by…

Presented at the national conference for the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in 2009. This discussed the development and implementation of the new SAT writing section.

Presented at the Annual National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) in New York in March 2008. This presentation explores how different item weighting can affect the effective weights, validity coefficents and test reliability of composite scores among test takers.