This volume contains a set of experimental English language vocabulary tests designed to be used with learners of English as a Second Language (ESL). The tests are graded into 6 levels of difficulty and there are 20 tests at each level. Teachers can use the tests to provide a rough lexical profile of individual students, or to monitor the progress…

Turner's (1980) visual literacy test for high school students and adults was adapted for use with eighth grade students. The new version was limited to questions dealing with motion media, and a half-hour "M.A.S.H." narrative television program was chosen for the focus on television production techniques and the narrative elements of the…

This study compared item difficulty and item discrimination indices for parallel multiple-choice items in three content areas: measurement concepts, statistical terminology, and synonyms. The statistics and measurement items were administered in classes where graduate students taking the test were studying the content. Vocabulary items represented…

Effects of item arrangement (easy-hard, uniform, and random), test anxiety, and sex on a 48-item multiple-choice mathematics test assembled from items of the American College Testing Program and taken by motivated upper level undergraduates and beginning graduate students were investigated. Four measures of anxiety were used: the Achievement Test…

International comparative educational studies make use of test instruments originally developed in English by international panels of experts, but that are ultimately administered in the language of instruction of the students. The comparability of the different language versions of these assessments is a critical issue in validating the…

Number right and elimination scores were analyzed on a college level mathematics exam assembled from pretest data. Anxiety measures were administered along with the experimental forms to undergraduates. Results suggest that neither test scores nor attitudes are influenced by item order knowledge thereof, or anxiety level. (Author/GK)

Studied the cognitive equivalence of computerized and paper-and-pencil reading comprehension tests using verbal protocol analysis. Results for 48 college students indicate that the only significant difference between the computerized and paper-and-pencil tests was in the frequency of identifying important information in the passage. (SLD)

Performance of a common set of test items on an examination in which the order of options for one test form was experimentally manipulated. Results for 759 medical specialty board examinees find that reordering item options results in significant but unpredictable effects on item difficulty. (SLD)

The purpose of this study was to determine whether it is both possible and cost-effective to revise middle-difficulty Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) discrete items in order to produce items of higher or lower difficulty. The basic procedure was to select items of a given difficulty and, by revising the distractors, make them easier or more…

This Monte Carlo study examined strategies for forming the matching variable for the Mantel-Haenszel (MH) differential item functioning (DIF) procedure. Data were generated using a three-parameter logistic item response theory model, with common guessing parameters. The number of subjects and test length were manipulated, as were the difficulty,…

Forty-five graduate students in two educational psychology classes were randomly assigned to three groups for a classroom test on the course content. One group was asked to go to another room and then was privately excused from the test. The other two groups took tests with the same 32 items, but one group used a multiple-choice format and the…

Number right and elimination scores were analyzed on a 48-item college level mathematics test that was assembled from pretest data in three forms by varying the item orderings: easy-hard, uniform, or random. Half of the forms contained information explaining the item arrangement and suggesting strategies for taking the test. Several anxiety…

With college graduate students in actual classroom settings, the effects of taking a recall test, a recognition test, or no test on retention four weeks later were studied. Results indicated that simply taking an exam had no significant effect on retention. (Author/GK)

Studied the solution strategies of 55 high school students who solved parallel constructed response and multiple-choice items that differed only in the presence of response options. Differences in difficulty between response formats did not correspond to differences in strategy choice. Interprets results in light of the relative comprehension…

Three examinations administered to medical students were analyzed to determine differences among severities of judges' assessments and among grading periods. The examinations included essay, clinical, and oral forms of the tests. Twelve judges graded the three essays for 32 examinees during a 4-day grading session, which was divided into eight…