One form of adaptive testing involves a two-stage procedure. The first stage is the administration of a routing test. From this first test, an estimate of an examinee's ability is obtained. On the basis of this ability estimate, a second test focused on a given ability level is administered. The purpose of this study was to compare the efficiency…

Guidelines for the construction and use of an attitude instrument are presented, and the application of the instrument to measure student attitude toward economics is described. Attention is directed to the Likert-like summated forced-choice variety of attitude instrument, whereby attitude toward the object is inferred from the summed responses to…

The paper presents 12 steps in developing and validating criterion referenced tests (CRTs). The author emphasizes the need to closely examine the test's stated purpose and trace the test through the 12 steps in order to find CRTs that are useful rather than useless. Examples are given for each step: preparing or selecting objectives; developing…

Procedures for conducting functional level testing have been available for use by practitioners for some time. However, the Title I Evaluation and Reporting System (TIERS), developed in response to the educational amendments of 1974 to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), has provided the impetus for widespread adoption of this…

An alternate-choice test item is a simple declarative sentence, one portion of which is given with two different wordings. For example, "Foundations like Ford and Carnegie tend to be (1) eager (2) hesitant to support innovative solutions to educational problems." The examinee's task is to choose the alternative that makes the sentence…

The answer-until-correct (AUC) procedure requires that examinees respond to a multi-choice item until they answer it correctly. Using a modified version of Horst's model for examinee behavior, this paper compares the effect of guessing on item reliability for the AUC procedure and the zero-one scoring procedure. (Author/CTM)

Item-test correlations are compared to item test-retest correlations as measures for selecting items in test construction. The author concludes that the item test-retest method is superior for item analysis which aims at getting shorter tests while maintaining test stability. (Author/JKS)

Using item responses from an in-training examination in diagnostic radiology, the application of a strength of association statistic to the general problem of item analysis is illustrated. Criteria for item selection, general issues of reliability, and error of measurement are discussed. (Author/LMO)

Under the assumptions of classical measurement theory and the condition of normality, a formula is derived for the reliability of composite scores. The formula represents an extension of the Spearman-Brown formula to the case of truncated data. (Author/JAZ)

The binomial error model includes form-to-form difficulty differences as error variance and leads to Ruder-Richardson formula 21 as an estimate of reliability. If the form-to-form component is removed from the estimate of error variance, the binomial model leads to KR 20 as the reliability estimate. (Author/BW)

Item writing is a major responsibility of trainers. Too often, qualified staff who prepare lessons carefully and teach conscientiously use inadequate tests that do not validly reflect the true level of trainee achievement. This monograph describes techniques for constructing multiple-choice items that measure student performance accurately. It…

A comparison of double as opposed to single multiple-choice questions yielded significant differences in regard to item difficulty, item discrimination, and internal reliability, but not concurrent validity. (Author/PN)

The School of Architecture faculty posed the methodological problem to construct a scale of 10 items or less to reliably evaluate instruction at different levels of technical and artistic instruction. Among the first 10 ordered items were: "The instructor did a good job" and "The course was worthwhile." (CM)

Nonrestricted-answer, multiple-choice test items are recommended as a way of including more facts and fewer incorrect answers in test items, and they do not cue successful guessing as restricted multiple choice items can. Examination construction, scoring, and reliability are discussed. (MSE)

Details the steps followed in the development of the Basic Skills Word List. (FL)