This cognitive interview study aims to improve the content validity of a newly developed reading motivation instrument for English learners. Previous research has shown there is a significant need for survey developers to conduct cognitive interviews to ensure that in real world settings survey respondents interpret the items as the framers…

We begin with a theoretical overview of the concepts of recollection and familiarity, focusing, in the spirit of this special issue, on the important contributions made by Andrew Mayes. In particular, we discuss the issue of when the generation of semantically-related information in response to a retrieval cue might be experienced as recollection…

Using 3 experiments, I examined false memory for encoding context by presenting Deese-Roediger-McDermott themes (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995) in usual-looking fonts and by testing related, but unstudied, lure items in a font that was shown during encoding. In 2 of the experiments, testing lure items in the font used to study their…

The nature of persisting spreading activation from list presentation in eliciting false recognition in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm was examined in two experiments. We compared the time course of semantic priming in the lexical decision task (LDT) and false alarms in speeded recognition under identical study and test conditions. The…

False recognition, broadly defined as a claim to remember something that was not encountered previously, can arise for multiple reasons. For instance, a distinction can be made between conceptual false recognition (i.e., false alarms resulting from semantic or associative similarities between studied and tested items) and perceptual false…

This study investigates the influence of changes in the wording of simple addition and subtraction problems without affecting their semantic structure on the level of difficulty of those problems for first and second graders and on the nature of their errors. The objective is to contribute to a better understanding of the process of constructing a…

The verbal analogy item as a measure of intelligence is investigated. Using latent partition analysis, this study attempts to identify a semantic structure of relationships that individuals use to comprehend completed analogies. The implications for test construction and test validity are discussed. (Author/JKS)

Examines the strategies used in answering a computerized multiple-choice test where all questions on a semantic topic were grouped together or randomly distributed. Findings indicate that students grouped by performance on the test used different strategies in completing the test due to distinct cognitive processes between the groups. (AEF)

This paper presents a technique for applying the Rule Space Model of cognitive diagnosis (Tatsuoka, 1983) to assessment in a semantically rich domain. Responses of 122 architects to 22 architecture test items developed to assess a range of architectural knowledge were analyzed using Rule Space. Verbal protocol analysis guided the construction of a…