Two indices for measuring the degree of conformity or consistency of an individual examinee's response pattern on a set of items are developed. The use of the indices for spotting aberrant response patterns of examinees is detailed. (Author/JKS)

A version of Tobin's framework for analyzing newspaper news items was used and evaluated in a college-level introductory sociology course. The results showed that students viewed the analysis assignment positively, increased their media consumption as a result of it, and found it a useful technique for applying sociological concepts. (Author/RM)

Content analyzed four personality inventories, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, California Personality Inventory, and Edwards Personality Preference Schedule to determine whether each item in the four inventories contained situational, temporal, or comparative information. Wide differences appeared…

Contingency analyses have been employed to assess the degree to which outcomes of successive tests of corresponding items deviate from stochastic independence. A method of adjusting contingency tables to remove the effects of subject and item inhomogeneities, is presented. The method represents a partial solution to the "Simpson's…

Different indices for the internal consistency, reproducibility, or homogeneity of a test are based upon highly similar conceptual frameworks. Illustrations are presented to demonstrate how the maximum and minimum values of KR20 are influenced by test difficulty and the shape of the distribution of test scores. (Author/CTM)

Bayesian techniques are adapted to the estimation of stimulus-response curves. Illustrative examples deal with estimation of person characteristic curves and item characteristic curves in the context of mental testing, and with estimation of a stimulus-response curve using data from a psychophysical experiment. (Author/JKS)

On distractor-identification tests students mark as many distractors as possible on each test item. A grading scale is developed for this type testing. The score is optimal in that it yields an unbiased estimate of the student's score as if no guessing had occurred. (Author/JKS)

Weber contends that the use of Rasch analysis, principal components analysis, and classical test analysis shows that an instrument designed to measure a "bilevel dimensionality" in probability achievement measures a single latent trait. That interpretation and the use of Rasch and classical analysis to establish unidimensionality are…

Obvious items were good predictors of all criteria; neutral items overlapped considerably with obvious items; and subtle items generally did not contribute uniquely to the prediction of any of the concurrent measures of depression. (Author)

A follow-up technique is needed to identify items contributing to items-by-groups interaction when using an ANOVA procedure to examine a test for biased items. The method described includes distribution theory for assessing level of significance and is sensitive to items at all difficulty levels. (Author/GSK)

A theory and a procedure are presented for estimating a domain parameter and item parameters for test items in a homogeneous domain, such that the combined domain and item parameters account for observed proportions right for each item in a test. (CTM)

Logical estimates of item difficulty made by judges were compared to empirical estimates derived from a test administration. Results indicated substantial correspondence between logical and empirical estimates, and substantial variation among judges. Further, the more elaborate the system used by judges to make estimates, the more accurate the…

Two theorems of unidimensional item response theory are extended to describe observable item response distributions when there is conditional independence between but not necessarily within item bundles. An item bundle is a small group of multiple-choice items sharing a common reading passage or a group of items sharing distractors. (SLD)

Comparability of two forms of the CCTST is evaluated. Data are compared with a previously reported study; relationships to comparable tests are considered. Evidence indicates low internal-consistency reliability estimates, a lack of comparability, and poor construct validity for Forms A and B of the CCTST. (Author/EMK)

Investigates differential item functioning (DIF) across two different broad language groupings, Asian and European, in a speaking test in which the test takers' responses were rated polytomously. Data were collected from 1038 nonnative speakers of English from France, Hong Kong, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, and Thailand who took the SPEAK test in…