The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), composed of the common elements of operational classification batteries used by the different services, has been given to high school students since 1968. Results are used by the schools for counseling and by the Armed Services for selecting and classifying potential recruits. The present…

Because it is difficult to ascertain the dimensionality of a test composed of binary items through the use of factor analysis alone, a method is proposed that combines item characteristic curve (ICC) theory with factor analysis. Factor structure of tetrachoric correlations is distorted by non-normal distribution of ability. Item characteristics…

A method is described which used the Rasch model for combining information across administrations of the same items in different tests to different student populations. The method was used in conjunction with the composite point biserial and mean square fit to provide more valid information about item quality. Over 700 items were administered to…

The Computerized Test-Result Reporting System (CTRS), which consists of three programs written in the BASIC language, was developed to analyze obective tests, test items, test results, and to provide the teacher-user with interpreted data about the performance of tests, Lest items, and students. This paper documents the three programs from the…

THE VALIDITY OF AN EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT TEST DEPENDS UPON THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN SPECIFIED EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES AND THE EXTENT TO WHICH THESE OBJECTIVES ARE MEASURED BY THE EVALUATION INSTRUMENT. THIS STUDY IS DESIGNED TO EVALUATE THE EFFECT OF STATISTICAL ITEM SELECTION ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE FINAL EVALUATION INSTRUMENT AS COMPARED WITH…

A DESCRIPTION IS GIVEN OF ITEM SAMPLING, OR "PSYCHOMETRIC-STATISTICAL INFERENCE," AN APPROACH TO GATHERING AND USING EDUCATIONAL DATA THAT ALLOWS STATISTICAL INFERENCES TO BE MADE SIMULTANEOUSLY WITH PSYCHOMETRIC INFERENCES. THIS IS A PROCEDURE IN WHICH BOTH PEOPLE AND ITEMS ARE SAMPLED AND THE DATA FROM A SAMPLE OF PEOPLE TAKING A SAMPLE OF ITEMS…

This study examined similarities and differences between blacks' and whites' responses to rarely endorsed Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) items, as well as those items responded to most differently by the ethnic groups. Our subjects, 882 normal black middle-class adults from Alabama, Michigan and North Carolina, were compared to…

The accuracy with which testees perceived the difficulty of ability-test items was investigated by administering two 41-item conventional tests on verbal ability. High- and low-ability groups responded to test items by choosing the correct alternative and then rating each item's difficulty relative to their levels of ability. Least-squares…

This study measures the stability of performance exhibited where different computer programing classes study the same material. By focusing standard measurement techniques on the item difficulty (the proportion of students answering an item correctly), it was determined that up to two-thirds of the reliable variance of a classroom test is held in…

A preliminary analysis of parent responses to questions related to factual information about the Virginia Beach 45-15 pilot elementary school program, where students attend classes 45 days and break 15 days year round, is provided. Specifically, the information component of the Virginia Beach 45-15 Pilot Project Questionnaire, which consists of…

To determine if Rasch Model procedures have any utility for equating pre-existing tests, data from the equating phase of the Anchor Test Study (ATS) were reanalyzed. This management report summarizes the work completed in the project, describes the differences in this project and that of the ATS, and presents recommendations and conclusions to the…

This report covers part of a project designed to develop and to make available to research workers markers for some of the temperament factors that have been established in the factor-analytic literature. An earlier report describes 28 such factors and defines several divisions of each factor, called subfactors, that appear in the literature to be…

The basic considerations that should be examined in performing an exploratory descriptive factor analysis of a communication concept are described in this paper. Factor analysis is a statistical technique designed to identify the fundamental, common elements within a pool of variables. For example, imagine asking students twenty questions all…

This research evaluated the total-time hypothesis for the learning of connected discourse--that in verbal learning "a fixed amount of time is necessary to learn a fixed amount of material regardless of the number of individual trials into which that time is divided." Learning material consisted of two sets of connected discourse for each of the…

Georg Rasch has developed a new one-parameter latent trait model to explain the performance of examinees on achievement tests. The model can be viewed as a special case of Birnbaum's two-parameter logistic model where all items are assumed to have equal discriminating power. Birnbaum's model permits items to vary in discriminating power. Both…