A Generative Approach to Psychological and Educational Measurement

Bejar, Isaac I.

doi:10.1002/j.2333-8504.1991.tb01387.x

Cited by 47 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…Understanding what makes items difficult will also contribute to more systematic and principled test design, more meaningful test interpretation, and better construct validation (Bejar, 1991;Embretson & Wetzel, 1987).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Understanding item difficulty is a topic that has been neglected until recently (Bejar, 1991). However, there is growing recognition of the usefulness of such knowledge for a variety of purposes:…”

Section: Complexity Analysis Of Itemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…constructing, interpreting, and validating tests (Bejar, 1991;Embretson & Wetzel,1987), comparing different tests (Scheuneman, Gerritz, & Embretson, 1991), equating tests (Mislevy, Sheehan, & Wingersky, 1992), and diagnosing student misconceptions (Tatsuoka, 1990). …”

Section: Complexity Analysis Of Itemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Complexity Analysis of Items From a Survey of Academic Achievement in the Life Sciences.

Enright

Allen

Kim

1993

ETS Research Report Series

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The difficulty of 44 items from the life sciences subscale of the NAEP 1985–86 science assessment was analyzed in terms of item attributes and science educators' judgments of difficulty. The attributes included ratings of various characteristics of the items' text and option set, the items' cognitive demand, and the level of knowledge required by items. Science educators' mean judgment of item difficulty, which accounted for 52% of the variance, was the best single predictor of item difficulty. Combining item attribute information with educators' judgments of item difficulty improved the prediction of item difficulty on the order of 7% to 15% of the variance. When item difficulty was modeled in terms of discrete item attributes (global judgments of item difficulty not included in the model), the level of knowledge required was an important determinant of difficulty, while cognitive demand was not. The implications of these results for construct validation and for test design are discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Complexity Analysis Of Itemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Complexity Analysis of Items From a Survey of Academic Achievement in the Life Sciences.

Enright

Allen

Kim

1993

ETS Research Report Series

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“…As such, there is a strong conceptual linkage between item models, assessment, and instruction (e.g., Bejar, 1993). …”

Section: Item Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Generative testing (e.g., Bejar, 1993) is a construct-driven approach to assessment that may have, in addition to its measurement benefits, many significant practical advantages. In this report, we have adopted the term item modeling to refer this approach.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Feasibility Study of On‐the‐fly Item Generation in Adaptive Testing

Bejar

Lawless

Morley

et al. 2002

ETS Research Report Series

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The goal of this study was to assess the feasibility of an approach to adaptive testing based on item models. A simulation study was designed to explore the affects of item modeling on score precision and bias, and two experimental tests were administered -an experimental, on-the-fly, adaptive quantitative-reasoning test as well as a linear test. Results of the simulation study showed that under different levels of isomorphicity, there was no bias, but precision of measurement was eroded, especially in the middle range of the true-score scale. However, the comparison of adaptive test scores with operational Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) test scores matched the test-retest correlation observed under operational conditions. Analyses of item functioning on linear forms suggested a high level of isomorphicity across items within models. The current study provides a promising first step toward significant cost and theoretical improvement in test creation methodology for educational assessment.

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Psychometric models of student conceptions in science: Reconciling qualitative studies and distractor-driven assessment instruments

Sadler¹

1998

J. Res. Sci. Teach.

166

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We stand poised to marry the fruits of qualitative research on children's conceptions with the machinery of psychometrics. This merger allows us to build upon studies of limited groups of subjects to generalize to the larger population of learners. This is accomplished by reformulating multiple choice tests to reflect gains in understanding cognitive development. This study uses psychometric modeling to rank the appeal of a variety of children's astronomical ideas on a single uniform scale. Alternative conceptions are captured in test items with highly attractive multiple choice distractors administered twice to 1250 8th through 12th-grade students at the start and end of their introductory astronomy courses. For such items, an unusual psychometric profile is observed-instruction appears to strengthen support for alternative conceptions before this preference eventually declines. This lends support to the view that such ideas may actually be markers of progress toward scientific understanding and are not impediments to learning. This method of analysis reveals the ages at which certain conceptions are more prevalent than others, aiding developers and practitioners in matching curriculum to student grade levels. This kind of instrument, in which distractors match common student ideas, has a profoundly different psychometric profile from conventional tests and exposes the weakness evident in conventional standardized tests. Distractor-driven multiple choice tests combine the richness of qualitative research with the power of quantitative assessment, measuring conceptual change along a single uniform dimension.

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A Generative Approach to Psychological and Educational Measurement

Cited by 47 publications

References 68 publications

A Complexity Analysis of Items From a Survey of Academic Achievement in the Life Sciences.

A Complexity Analysis of Items From a Survey of Academic Achievement in the Life Sciences.

A Feasibility Study of On‐the‐fly Item Generation in Adaptive Testing

Psychometric models of student conceptions in science: Reconciling qualitative studies and distractor-driven assessment instruments

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