Open University Malaysia (OUM) is progressively moving towards implementing assessment on demand and online assessment. This move is deemed necessary for OUM to continue to be the leading provider of flexible learning. OUM serves a very large number of students each semester and these students are vastly distributed throughout the country. As the…

In 2015, the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) was tasked with developing literacy and numeracy skills testing for pre-service teachers. All undergraduate and postgraduate trainee teachers are now required to pass these literacy and numeracy tests at some stage on their journey to becoming a teacher; for commencing students from…

Accurate appraisal of others' behavior is critical for the production of skilled interpersonal behavior. We used an ecologically valid methodology, a video-based situational judgment test with true-false items, to assess the accuracy with which students (N = 947) perceive the interpersonal behavior of actors involved in workplace situations.…

This study discusses the need, development, and validation of the Innovation Test Instrument (ITI). This article outlines how the researchers identified the content domain of the assessment and created test items. Then, it describes initial validation testing of the instrument. The findings suggest that the ITI is a good first step in creating an…

The current study focuses on developing the learning progression of number sense for primary school students, and it applies a cognitive diagnostic model, the rule space model, to data analysis. The rule space model analysis firstly extracted nine cognitive attributes and their hierarchy model from the analysis of previous research and the…

Reading comprehension tests are often assumed to measure the same, or at least similar, constructs. Yet, reading is not a single but a multidimensional form of processing, which means that variations in terms of reading material and item design may emphasize one aspect of the construct at the cost of another. The educational systems in Denmark,…

The understanding of what makes a question difficult is a crucial concern in assessment. To study the difficulty of test questions, we focus on the case of PISA, which assesses to what degree 15-year-old students have acquired knowledge and skills essential for full participation in society. Our research question is to identify PISA science item…

The purpose of the present study is to apply the item response theory (IRT) and testlet response theory (TRT) models to a reading comprehension test. This study applied the TRT models and the traditional IRT model to a seventh-grade reading comprehension test (n = 8,815) with eight testlets. These three models were compared to determine the best…

Though proficiency with computation is highly emphasized in national mathematics standards, students with mathematics difficulty (MD) continue to struggle with computation. To learn more about the differences in computation error patterns between typically achieving students and students with MD, we assessed 478 3rd-grade students on a measure of…

This explorative-descriptive study set out to examine the equivalence among Test of English Proficiency (TOEP) forms, developed by the Indonesian Testing Service Centre (ITSC) and co-founded by The Association for The Teaching of English as a Foreign Language in Indonesia (TEFLIN) and The Association of Psychology in Indonesia. Using a…

Item response theory (IRT) has so many advantages than its precedent Classical Test Theory (CTT) such as non-changing item parameters, ability parameter estimations free from the items. However, in order to get these advantages, some assumptions should be met and they are; unidimensionality, normality and local independence. However, it is not…

Construct-irrelevant cognitive complexity of some items in the statewide grade-level assessments may impose performance barriers for students with disabilities who are ineligible for alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards. This has spurred research into whether items can be modified to reduce complexity without affecting…

This paper presents a theoretical and empirical case for the value of scenario-based assessment (SBA) in the measurement of students' written argumentation skills. First, we frame the problem in terms of creating a reasonably efficient method of evaluating written argumentation skills, including for students at relatively low levels of competency.…

Throughout the country, state assessments in reading, mathematics, and science continue to play important roles in instructional improvement and accountability. State assessments must align to academic standards that are significantly more challenging than previous standards, reflecting the current knowledge and skill demands of postsecondary…

"Data-drive instruction can distort the way reading is taught, harming the students who need high-quality instruction the most," Susan B. Neuman concludes from her research team's two years of observation in nine low-income New York City schools. She describes how some students are reminded that they are "failures" every day by…