A set of design patterns for digital item types has been developed in response to challenges identified in various projects by teachers in higher education. The goal of the projects in question was to design and develop formative and summative tests, and to develop interactive learning material in the form of quizzes. The subject domains involved…

One purpose of a college education is to create active and engaged citizens and future leaders. If everyone wants students who have the potential to become such people, it is necessary to keep in mind the skills involved in good citizenship and positive leadership when evaluating applicants. Many of the leaders who have gotten the world into its…

Randomly equivalent forms (REF) of tests in listening and reading for nonnative speakers of English were created by stratified random assignment of items to forms, stratifying on item content and predicted difficulty. The study included 50 replications of the procedure for each test. Each replication generated 2 REFs. The equivalence of those 2…

In the context of paper and pencil testing, the frequency of the exposure of items is usually controlled through policies that regulate both the reuse of test forms and the frequency with which a candidate may retake the test. In the context of computerized adaptive testing, where item pools are large and expensive to produce and testing can be on…

The decision to use a forced-choice test item format versus an item format where choice is not forced (e.g., a Likert scale) might best be determined by the nature of the information sought since the difficult decisions required for forced-choice formats may result in a different scaling than an unforced method. If a forced choice is desired,…

Section Pre-Equating (SPE) is a method used to equate test forms that consist of multiple separately timed sections. SPE does not require examinees to take two complete forms of the test. Instead, all of the old form and one or two sections of the new form are administered to each examinee, and missing data techniques are employed to estimate the…

This paper addresses questions of whether positively- and negatively-worded items measure the same construct and whether the rating scale categories "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree" are used in the same way for both types of items. Item response theory (IRT), specifically the Andrich Rating Scale Model (B. Wright and G.…

A common procedure for obtaining multiple readings (ratings) for a constructed response item, especially in high-stakes tests, is to have two readers read the papers independently, with a third reading if the results differ by more than one point. This necessitates a scoring rule that specifies how the ratings will be aggregated into a single item…

This preview of the Tests of General Educational Development (GED) to be introduced in 1988 begins with a brief background of the review process that will result in the GED Test. An overview of committee recommendations then highlights five themes of Test Specifications Committee panel reports: the tests should (1) demand more highly developed…

The purpose of this study was to apply the tenets of social exchange theory in developing cover letters for mailed surveys. A survey questionnaire designed to measure teachers' attitudes toward tests was mailed to 1200 Kansas teachers. Cover letters were written to create variation in perceived cost (time needed to complete the questionnaire) and…

The study investigated the effect of "item density" on item difficulty in passage-related language tests. Item density refers to the number and frequency of items in relation to clear text. The format used was a passage with underlinings to signal the language situations out of which the items were constructed. American College Testing…

The Ralph Nader report on the Educational Testing Service (ETS), entitled The Reign of ETS, the Corporation That Makes Up Minds, explicitly and implicitly raises serious issues concerning the testing enterprise. Major themes include the role of testing in the educational selection system, the validity of existing tests, and the corporate power of…

Two variables directly related to understanding and improving notetaking practices and instructional strategies were investigated. The first variable investigated was the different levels of pretraining: pretraining vs. no pretraining; and the second was the influence of three types of test mode expectations: multiple choice, essay, or…

Provides recommendations to aid teachers (elementary and secondary) in planning tests, constructing item types (essay, short answer, true-false, or other alternate response, matching, multiple-choice), administering tests, scoring tests, analyzing tests, and using test results. (KH)

Discusses, for the benefit of research workers and other test users, the ongoing controversy concerning the relative merits of conventional test theory and Rasch scaling in the construction of reading tests. Concludes that a great deal of further research is required to see whether these approaches are educationally valid. (JD)