Unattended consequences: how text responses alter alongside PISA’s mode change from 2012 to 2015

Abstract

In 2015, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) introduced multiple changes in its study design, the most extensive being the transition from paper-to computer-based assessment. We investigated the differences between German students' text responses to eight reading items from the paper-based study in 2012 to text responses to the same items from the computer-based study in 2015. Two response featuresinformation quantity and relevance proportionwere extracted by natural language processing techniques because they are crucial indicators for the response process. Showcasing potential differential relationships, we additionally examined gender differences. Modelling effects of the round of assessment, gender, and response correctness on the response features, we analysed responses from 15-year-olds and ninth-graders in Germany. Results revealed differences in the text responses between the rounds of assessment in that students included more information overall in 2015, and the proportions of relevance varied substantially across items. As the study investigated the mode change in PISA's natural (not experimental) setting, the differences could mirror cohort trends or design changes. However, with the evidence reported, we conclude that the differences could indicate mode effects. KEYWORDS Computer-based assessment; paper-based assessment; open-ended text responses; mode effect; automatic processing CONTACT Fabian Zehner

Construct Equivalence of PISA Reading Comprehension Measured With Paper‐Based and Computer‐Based Assessments

“…Finally, due to the study design and the data analyses, differences in short text responses that might potentially have been caused by different coding of hand‐written versus typed responses were confounded with potential mode effects at the item‐type level. Recent results (e.g., Zehner, Goldhammer, Lubaway, & Sälzer, ) suggest a need for further research specifically on items that require text responses.…”

To Score or Not to Score: Factors Influencing Performance and Feasibility of Automatic Content Scoring of Text Responses

“…Automatic scoring is mostly used in settings where the responses are already digitized text, either because they are directly written on a computer or manually transcribed from other sources. 3 It has been shown (Zehner et al, 2019(Zehner et al, , 2020 that the assessment's input modality has an impact on the quantity of information present in the responses; that is, typed responses contain substantially more information than handwritten ones, which affects both conceptual and realization variance. Input modality may also influence the frequency and type of spelling errors and, thus, part of the realization variance found in the data.…”

Invariance of the Response Processes Between Gender and Modes in an Assessment of Reading

“…An additional limitation regarding the applied modeling is that we restricted the complexity by investigating gender effects and mode effects separately in this study. Current literature (e.g., [34]) give reasons to assume an interplay between the mode and gender effect. Further research might focus on a multi-group model by gender with both modes.…”