Prosody can be used to infer whether or not candidates fully understand a passage they are reading aloud. In this paper, we focused on automatic assessment of prosody in a read-aloud section for a high-stakes English test. A new method was proposed to handle fundamental frequency (F0) of unvoiced segments that significantly improved the predictive power of F0. The kmeans clustering method was u...

We describe Wayang Outpost, a web-based ITS for the Math section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). Wayang Outpost has several distinctive features: a large breadth of problems with multimedia animations and sound in the help, problems embedded in narrative and fantasy contexts, alternative teaching strategies for students of different mental rotation abilities and memory retrieval speed. W...

The majority of high-stakes tests from elementary school through postsecondary education include the timed impromptu essay as a measure of writing performance. For adolescents with writing disorders, this type of evaluation often presents a significant barrier. The purpose of the current study was twofold. First, we investigated the influence of handwritten, typed, and typed/edited formats of a...

We describe Wayang Outpost, a web-based ITS for the Math section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). It has several distinctive features: help with multimedia animations and sound, problems embedded in narrative and fantasy contexts, alternative teaching strategies for students of different mental rotation abilities and memory retrieval speeds. Our work on adding intelligence for adaptivity ...

High stakes tests are defined as those tests that “carry serious consequences for students or educators.” The consequences from standardized achievement tests range from grade retention for school children to rewards or punitive measures for schools and school districts. The nature of standardized achievement tests used in these situations poses validity problems for the decisions. Numerous uni...

High stakes tests are defined as those tests that “carry serious consequences for students or educators.” The consequences from standardized achievement tests range from grade retention for school children to rewards or punitive measures for schools and school districts. The nature of standardized achievement tests used in these situations poses validity problems for the decisions. Numerous uni...

It is commonly perceived that increasing incentives improves performance. However, the reaction to increased incentives might differ between men and women, leading to gender differences in performance. In a natural experiment, we study the gender difference in performance resulting from changes in stakes. We use detailed information on the performance of high-school students and exploit the var...