Because of the increased popularity of computerized adaptive testing (CAT), many admissions tests, as well as certification and licensure examinations, have been transformed from their paper-and-pencil versions to computerized adaptive versions. A major difference between paper-and-pencil tests and CAT from an examinee's point of view is that in…

An online survey about the use of small groups by school counselors was completed by 802 members of the American School Counseling Association. The vast majority of respondents offered groups in their schools, but were most influenced in that decision by time constraints. Qualitative analysis of comment data provided more depth and insight about…

Motivation in distance education (DE) has been studied mostly at the postsecondary level with few studies having been conducted at the high-school level. This paper breaks with this tradition by reporting on the perspectives on motivation of 42 Canadian high-school DE teachers. Data collection involved one-hour long, semi-structured telephone…

Disproportionately large numbers of Black youth experience repeated encounters with the juvenile justice system, and often these same youth present with a variety of school-related difficulties. Data from a sample of 842 Black males, assessed in five Ohio juvenile courts using the Global Risk Assessment Device (GRAD), are used to describe the…

Preliminary pilot studies and a field study show how a generalizable conceptual framework calibrated with item response modeling can be used to describe the development of student conceptual understanding in chemistry. ChemQuery is an assessment system that uses a framework of the key ideas in the discipline, called the Perspectives of Chemists,…

The Scan-Tron Forms Analysis Package (SFAP) is a collection of integrated programs that allow an IBM-PC (or compatible) to collect data from a Scan-Tron 1200 forms reader. In addition to the basic data acquisition capability, the SFAP has additional capabilities related to the viewing and formatting of incoming data. When used in combination with…

A computerized version of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory was developed that incorporated both administration and scoring. This method was compared with the original manual form. The results indicated that the test-retest reliability was high regardless of the method of administration and that similar results were obtained on the…

Developed a method based on 0-1 linear programming to stratify an item pool optimally for use in alpha-stratified adaptive testing. Applied the method to a previous item pool from the computerized adaptive test of the Graduate Record Examinations. Results show the new method performs well in practical situations. (SLD)

Researchers at Emory University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are seeking an answer to whether the Internet can help save the life of a suicidal student. A study conducted at both colleges gauged the effectiveness of anonymous online depression-screening questionnaires and results indicate that the surveys helped counselors…

The work aims to improve the assessment of creative problem-solving in science education by employing language technologies and computational-statistical machine learning methods to grade students' natural language responses automatically. To evaluate constructs like creative problem-solving with validity, open-ended questions that elicit…

Literature on coping strategies and assessments has not previously included international students, who make up approximately 4% of university students. Results of an Internet survey of 555 graduate and undergraduate international students in U.S. universities are reported. The survey included the Brief COPE, a widely used assessment of coping…

If the purpose of language learning is communication, then improving students' reading comprehension competence becomes an overall goal in language teaching. This paper examines the online resources of reading comprehension tests with non-English major college students, and tackles the problem with the teaching method of integrating web-based…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the design and first results of the integration of a web-based system person-centred group-activity support system (PEGASUS) in university instruction, as a means for advancing person-centred learning by supporting group activity. The PEGASUS is expected to help students and teachers in two distinct…

The research aims to examine whether there is a difference in undergraduate student performance on skill-based exams in an introductory computer literacy course at a state comprehensive university when exams are administered in-class vs. online. Two samples, each consisting of approximately 107 students, are considered for this study. A comparison…

This paper opens up a debate about policy and practice in computer-assisted assessment (CAA) of mathematics for undergraduates with specific learning difficulties e.g. dyslexia. Guidelines for designing assessments for such students are emerging and some may be transferable to CAA. Whether mathematics brings with it particular issues is unclear.…