In this research report, we present an empirical argument for the use of a contributory scoring approach for the 2-essay writing assessment of the analytical writing section of the "GRE"® test in which human and machine scores are combined for score creation at the task and section levels. The approach was designed to replace a currently…

Data collected from online learning and tutoring systems for individual students showed strong autocorrelation or dependence because of content connection, knowledge-based dependency, or persistence of learning behavior. When the response data show little dependence or negative autocorrelations for individual students, it is suspected that…

Some probabilistic illustrations of the reliability coefficient are provided to assist in interpretation of this measure. All explanations are derived under the assumption that the joint distribution of examinee scores from two parallel tests is well approximated by a bivariate normal distribution.

This study derived an expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm for estimating the parameters of multidimensional item response models. A genetic algorithm (GA) was developed to be used in the maximization step in each EM cycle. The focus of the EM-GA algorithm developed in this paper was on multidimensional items with "mixed structure."…

This paper describes an approach to item analysis that is based on the estimation of a set of response curves for each item. The response curves show, at a glance, the difficulty and the discriminating power of the item and the popularity of each distractor, at any level of the criterion variable (e.g., total score). The curves are estimated by…

Statistical prediction problems often involve both a direct estimate of a true score and covariates of this true score. Given the criterion of mean squared error, this study determines the best linear predictor of the true score given the direct estimate and the covariates. Results yield an extension of Kelley's formula for estimation of the true…