A better understanding of how distractor features influence the plausibility of distractors is essential for an efficient multiple-choice (MC) item construction in educational assessment. The plausibility of distractors has a major influence on the psychometric characteristics of MC items. Our analysis utilizes the nominal categories model to…

Hauptschule (practical secondary school) pupils are more readily confused than Gymnasium (university-preparatory secondary school) pupils when confronted with false answers. Spelling tests should be designed with regard to the type of school. Introducing visual guides helps the Hauptschule pupils to better achievement in productive tests. (Text is…

Discusses the "sore-finger" form of multiple choice test items. "Sore finger" items employ authentic texts making use of the rules of text grammar, achieve high discrimination levels, and show a high validity for several subtests, especially style tests. The use of sore finger items in German nationwide English and German tests…