In the methods and approaches developed for estimating the operating characteristics of the discrete item responses, the maximum likelihood estimate of the examinee based upon the "Old Test" has an important role. When Old Test does not provide a sufficient amount of test information for the upper and lower part of the ability interval,…

Diagnosing cognitive errors possessed by examinees can be considered as a pattern classification problem that is designed to classify a sequential input of stimuli into one of several predetermined groups. The sequential inputs in this paper's context are item responses, and the predetermined groups are various states of knowledge resulting from…

A classical problem in mastery testing is the choice of passing score and test length so that the mastery decisions are optimal. This problem has been addressed several times from a variety of viewpoints. In this paper, the usual indifference zone approach is adopted, with a new criterion for optimizing the passing score. Specifically,…

False positive and false negative error rates were studied for competency testing when failing examinees are permitted to retake the test. Formulas are provided for the beta-binomial and Rasch models. Estimates based on these models are compared for six data sets from the South Carolina Basic Skills Assessment Program. (SLD)

The empirical performance of the technique proposed by P. O. Johnson and J. Neyman (1936) (the JN technique) and the modification of R. F. Potthoff (1964) was studied in simulated data settings. The robustness of the two JN techniques was investigated with respect to their ability to control Type I and Type III errors. Factors manipulated in the…

Use of the bootstrap resampling technique (BRT) is assessed in its application to resampling analysis associated with measurement of payment allocation errors by federally funded Family Assistance Programs. The BRT is applied to a food stamp quality control database in Oregon. This analysis highlights the outlier-sensitivity of the…