Test input has often been taken as a given in test design practice. Nearly all guides for test designers provide extensive coverage of how to design test items but pay little attention to test input. This paper presents the case that test input plays a crucial role in designing tests of soft skills that have rarely been assessed in existing tests.…

The aim of this study is to develop a valid and reliable measurement tool that measures critical thinking skills of university students. Pamukkale Critical Thinking Skills Scale was developed as two separate forms; multiple choice and open-ended. The validity and reliability studies of the multiple-choice form were constructed on two different…

School systems across the country are transitioning from paper-based testing (PBT) to computer-based testing (CBT). As this technological shift occurs, more research is necessary to understand the practical and performance implications of administering CBTs. Currently, there is a paucity of research using CBTs to examine working memory (WM)…

Multiple-choice (MC) analogy items are often used in cognitive assessment. However, in dynamic testing, where the aim is to provide insight into potential for learning and the learning process, constructed-response (CR) items may be of benefit. This study investigated whether training with CR or MC items leads to differences in the strategy…

Background: Strand, Deary, and Smith (2006) reported an analysis of sex differences on the Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT) for over 320,000 UK students 11-12 years old. Although mean differences were small, males were overrepresented at the upper and lower extremes of the score distributions on the quantitative and non-verbal batteries and at the…

Multiple-choice questions are widely used in higher education and have some important advantages over constructed-response test questions. It seems, however, that many teachers underestimate the value of multiple-choice questions, believing them to be useful only for assessing how well students can memorize information, but not for assessing…

In his pioneer investigations of deductive logical reasoning competence, R. H. Ennis (R. H. Ennis and D. H. Paulus, 1965) used a multiple-choice format in which the premises are given, and it is asked whether the conclusion would then be true. In the adaptation of his work for use in Jamaica, the three possible answers were stated as…

A study was conducted to investigate: (1) the relationships between the results from various forms of assessment and the patterns of correlation across content areas; (2) how cognitive components correlate with the test results from different classroom assessments; and (3) how content areas affected the relationships. Data were collected from a…

Reports on a preliminary study of cognitive style and performance of 182 secondary students on the British General Certificate of Secondary Education. Finds that students who tested at an intermediate position on both dimensions of the Wholist-Analytic cognitive style measure did best on the test. (CFR)

Sources of item bias located in characteristics of the test item were studied in a reasoning test developed in South Africa. Subjects were 1,056 White, 1,063 Indian, and 1,093 Black students from standard 7 in Afrikaans and English schools. Format and content of the 85-item Reasoning Test were manipulated to obtain information about bias or…

Scientific literacy and authenticity have gained a lot of attention in the past few decades worldwide. The goal of the study was to develop various authentic assessments to investigate students' scientific literacy for corresponding to the new curriculum reform of Taiwan in 1997. In the process, whether ninth graders were able to apply school…