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 ...

The U.S. priority on testing and accountability challenges school administrators to adopt, adapt or develop assessment systems that provide concrete evidence in particular subject matter areas such as science. Curricular programs emphasizing constructivist learning approaches and complex reasoning such as scientific inquiry are often not well matched to the assessment instruments used to evalua...

In high-stakes selection among candidates with considerable domain-specific knowledge and experience, investigations of whether high-fidelity simulations (assessment centers; ACs) have incremental validity over low-fidelity simulations (situational judgment tests; SJTs) are lacking. Therefore, this article integrates research on the validity of knowledge tests, low-fidelity simulations, and hig...

In March 2012, CCRC released two studies examining how well two widely used assessment tests—COMPASS and ACCUPLACER—predict the subsequent performance of entering students in their college-level courses. The studies, Do High-Stakes Placement Exams Predict College Success? and Predicting Success in College: The Importance of Placement Tests and High School Transcripts, can be found at http://ccr...

This article describes what a Web-based language test (WBT) is, how WBTs differ from traditional computer-based tests, and what uses WBTs have in language testing. After a brief review of computer-based testing, WBTs are defined and categorized as low-tech or high tech. Since low-tech tests are the more feasible, they will constitute the focus of this paper. Next, item types for low-tech WBTs a...

Background/Context: The prevailing theory of action underlying No Child Left Behind’s high-stakes testing and accountability ratings is that schools and students held accountable to these measures will automatically increase educational output as educators try harder, schools will adopt more effective methods, and students will learn more. In Texas, the centerpiece of high school accountability...

Critical Language Assessment (CLA) argues that language testing is a form of social practice and an agent of cultural, social, educational as well as ideological agendas. As such this article scrutinized the power that different groups of people including, teachers, students and their parents own at the levels of developing, administrating and interpreting Iranian University Entrance Examinatio...

This study used principles underlying item generation theory to posit competing perspectives about which features of situational judgment tests might enhance or impede consistent measurement across repeat test administrations. This led to 3 alternate-form development approaches (random assignment, incident isomorphism, and item isomorphism). The effects of these approaches on alternate-form con...

American schools are awash in standardized testing. Students are spending more and more time on state-mandated, high-stakes tests linked to state standards. There are variations among the states in terms of how often they test students, what subjects they test, whether their exams are normor criterion-referenced, and whether multiple-choice questions are supplemented by other question types. Bu...