A specially designed answer format was used for three tests in a college level agriculture class of 19 students to record responses to three things about each item: (1) the student's choice of the best answer; (2) the degree of certainty with which the answer was chosen; and (3) all the answer choices which the student was certain were incorrect.…

The complexity of defining accurate passing scores with a minimum classification error when evaluating criterion-referenced, multiple-choice tests has been a major problem for classroom teachers. Therefore, a practical procedure in which the instructor determines the plausibility of each item option for the minimally acceptable examinee is…

Multiple-choice items were used to measure knowledge of drug abuse among four distinct groups of college students in the Los Angeles area. No difference in knowledge was found about five aspects of drug abuse measured by subscales of the instrument. These findings suggest that knowledge about drugs is remarkably uniform, although the students…

Intended to help institutions place their entering students in regular freshman English composition courses, the Test of Standard Written English (TSWF) is most useful to colleges that also offer alternate courses designed to improve students' understanding of the material explored by the test. The Test of Standard Written English assesses…

These 21 self-assessment units are intended to accompany the seven teaching manuals in the series "New Approaches to Bilingual, Bicultural Education." The units consist of three self-administered evaluation instruments for each manual. They are designed both as a review and as a means of emphasizing the important concepts found in the…

This mastery test is designed to accompany unit 4 of the second-semester 12th-grade course, "Comparing Political Experiences." The 25-item multiple-choice test was developed by the National Evaluation Systems, Inc. in conjunction with the project directors to determine whether the unit objectives have been achieved. The test measures…

In order to permit teachers to tailor their instruction in the introduction of the SPPED Multiple Choice Cloze to their students, this training manual provides a package of lesson plans and materials developed by the System for Pupil and Program Evaluation and Development (SPPED). The materials include Student Guides for grade 1, grades 2-3,…

The purpose of this study was to compare certain characteristics of multiple-choice (MC) and complex multiple-choice (CMC) achievement tests designed to measure knowledge in medical-surgical nursing. Each of 268 junior and senior nursing students from four midwestern schools responded to one of four test forms. MC items were developed by…

This report describes an automated system for administering, scoring, and recording results of multiple-choice tests. The system consists of examinee station, proctor station, and central computer; the report describes the equipment and the programing characteristics of the respective components. The system is designed for tests tailored to the…

This paper explores the effects of item choice on ability estimation when using a tailored testing procedure based on the Rasch simple logistic model. Most studies of the simple logistic model imply that ability estimates are totally independent of the items used, regardless of the testing procedure. This paper shows that the ability estimate is…

In latent trait models the standard procedure for handling the problem caused by guessing on multiple choice tests is to estimate a parameter which is intended to measure the "guessingness" inherent in an item. Birnbaum's three parameter model, which handles guessing in this manner, ignores individual differences in guessing tendency. This paper…

To combat difficulties of dictated spelling tests, such as unreliable scoring due to illegible writing and the possibility of clues being provided through the enunciation of words by examiners, a technique was developed for writing experimental spelling tests by computer. Additionally, the diagnostic function of spelling scales was considered…

An application of the two-paramenter logistic (Rasch) model to tailored testing is presented. The model is discussed along with the maximum likelihood estimation of the ability parameters given the response pattern and easiness parameter estimates for the items. The technique has been programmed for use with an interactive computer terminal. Use…

This handbook presents instructions for implementing a confidence testing program in technical training situations, identification of possible areas of application, techniques for evaluating confidence information, advantages and disadvantages of confidence testing, time considerations, and problem areas. Complete instructions for "Pick-One" and…

This paper examines confidence testing, and reasons for using confidence tests. Different scoring systems are studied in order to clarify the meaning of significance of the weights which subjects assign to confidence scored tests. (DLG)