Introduction: Item response theory (IRT) has received much attention in validation of assessment instrument because it allows the estimation of students' ability from any set of the items. Item response theory allows the difficulty and discrimination levels of each item on the test to be estimated. In the framework of IRT, item characteristics are…

It is imperative to collect validity evidence prior to interpreting and using test scores. During the process of collecting validity evidence, test developers should consider whether test scores are contaminated by sources of extraneous information. This is referred to as construct irrelevant variance, or the "degree to which test scores are…

Balancing assessment of learning outcomes with the expectations of students is a perennial challenge in education. Difficult exams, in which many students perform poorly, exacerbate this problem and can inspire a wide variety of interventions, such as a grading curve. However, addressing poor performance can sometimes distort or inflate grades and…

A feature of the presented study is a comprehensive approach to studying the reliability problem of linguistic testing results due to the several functional and variable factors impact. Contradictions and ambiguous views of scientists on the researched issues determine the relevance of this study. The article highlights the problem of equivalence…

The purpose of this study comprises (1) calibrating the Basic Statistics Test for Indonesian undergraduate psychology students using the Rasch model, (2) testing the impact of adjustment for guessing on item parameters, person parameters, test reliability, and distribution of item difficulty and person ability, and (3) comparing person scores…

A conceptualization of multiple-choice exams in terms of signal detection theory (SDT) leads to simple measures of item difficulty and item discrimination that are closely related to, but also distinct from, those used in classical item analysis (CIA). The theory defines a "true split," depending on whether or not examinees know an item,…

The development of assessments as part of the funded LOCUS project is described. The assessments measure students' conceptual understanding of statistics as outlined in the GAISE PreK-12 Framework. Results are reported from a large-scale administration to 3,430 students in grades 6 through 12 in the United States. Items were designed to assess…

There is a broad literature in multiple-choice test development, both in terms of item-writing guidelines, and psychometric functionality as a measurement tool. However, most of the published literature concerns multiple-choice testing in the context of expert-designed high-stakes standardized assessments, with little attention being paid to the…

When examinees perceive a test as low stakes, it is logical to assume that some of them will not put out their maximum effort. This condition makes the validity of the test results more complicated. Although many studies have investigated motivational fluctuation across tests during a testing session, only a small number of studies have…

Elicited Imitation Tests (EITs) are commonly used in second language acquisition (SLA)/bilingualism research contexts to assess the general oral proficiency of study participants. While previous studies have provided valuable EIT construct-related validity evidence, some key gaps remain. This study uses an integrative data analysis to further…

This study describes the development of a special education teacher observation protocol detailing the elements of effective decoding instruction. The psychometric properties of the protocol were investigated through many-facet Rasch measurement (MFRM). Video observations of classroom decoding instruction from 20 special education teachers across…

Background: There is an agreement that the methodological quality of randomized trials should be assessed in systematic reviews, but there is a debate on how this should be done. We conducted a construct validation study of the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) scale, which is widely used to assess the quality of trials in physical therapy…

The present contribution aims at presenting an assessment tool (i.e., the TALK-assessment) built to evaluate the language development and school readiness of Italian preschoolers before they enter primary school, and its predictive validity for the children's reading and writing skills at the end of the first year of primary school. The early…

The Lawson classroom test of scientific reasoning is a quite popular and widely used tool that measures the level and development of the student's scientific reasoning skills. In this contribution, the results of this test for the N=446 students of the Faculty of Science Palacký University Olomouc from the years 2018-2020 at the beginning of their…

As a high-stakes standardized test, IELTS is expected to have comparable forms of test papers so that test takers from different test administration on different dates receive comparable test scores. Therefore, this study examined the text difficulty and task characteristics of four parallel academic IELTS reading tests to reveal to what extent…