The New York State Education Department (NYSED) has a partnership with NWEA for the development of the 2024 Grades 3-8 English Language Arts Tests. Teachers from across the State work with NYSED in a variety of activities to ensure the validity and reliability of the New York State Testing Program (NYSTP). The 2024 Grades 6 and 7 English Language…

Considering that each student has a different cognitive structure, in addition to providing students with the perspective of a scientist, evaluating this acquisition; it is an important dimension of science education in the context of measurement and evaluation. In this context, the scientific process skills (SPS) of the students with different…

The New York State Education Department (NYSED) has a partnership with Questar Assessment Inc. (Questar) for the development of the 2020 Grades 3-8 English Language Arts Tests. Teachers from across the State work with NYSED in a variety of activities to ensure the validity and reliability of the New York State Testing Program (NYSTP). The 2020…

Although multiple-choice items (MCIs) are widely used for classroom assessment, designing MCIs with sufficient number of plausible distracters is very challenging for teachers. In this regard, previous empirical studies reveal that using three-option MCIs provides various advantages when compared to four-option MCIs due to less preparation and…

The so-called control-of-variables strategy (CVS) incorporates the important scientific reasoning skills of designing controlled experiments and interpreting experimental outcomes. As CVS is a prominent component of science standards appropriate assessment instruments are required to measure these scientific reasoning skills and to evaluate the…

This study focused on the use of teacher-designed Grammar tests for assessing Student s' grammar knowledge on certain topics after the same classroom learning experience. Traditional grammar tests are used with sample students to assess them along with two teacher-designed tests. Test 1 is made up of multiple choice, arranging words into sentence,…

This was a study of differential item functioning (DIF) for grades 4, 7, and 10 reading and mathematics items from state criterion-referenced tests. The tests were composed of multiple-choice and constructed-response items. Gender DIF was investigated using POLYSIBTEST and a Rasch procedure. The Rasch procedure flagged more items for DIF than did…

Grolnick and Ryan (1987) assume that an autonomy supportive environment leads to higher learner engagement and thus to greater achievements and deeper understanding of content. In school, knowledge acquisition (rote learning as well as conceptual learning) are regarded as most important. In this study, we examined the effects of teachers' autonomy…

The purposes of the present study were to ascertain whether or not two particular formatting characteristics influenced seventh grade student performance on math tests. One research question focused on the effects of decimal positioning in multiple choice options for computational items. In a second question, labeling format was compared with…

The recall of information about Hepatitis B demonstrated by 180 seventh graders was tested with three test types: (1) short-answer; (2) true/false; and (3) multiple-choice. Short answer testing was the most reliable. Suggestions are made for the use of short-answer tests in evaluating student knowledge. (SLD)

This paper describes a study that investigated the interchangeability of four different assessment methods for measuring middle-school students' understanding of science concepts. The four methods compared were hands-on tasks with associated multiple-choice and written justification items, written analogues of the hands-on tasks, and two types of…

This study hypothesized that items in the one-question-per-passage format would be less easily answered when administered without their associated contexts than conventional reading comprehension items. A total of 256 seventh and eighth grade students were administered both Forms 3A and 3B of the Sequential Tests of Educational Progress (STEP 11).…

This study investigated the effects on the performance of different age group students of: (1) method of task presentation; (2) format of test questionnaire; and (3) the numerical content of the tasks. The sample consisted of 556 students from grades 7, 9 and 12. The tasks, used for assessing reasoning skills, were taken from the Video-Taped Group…