Pan and Wollack (PW) proposed a machine learning method to detect compromised items. We extend the work of PW to an approach detecting compromised items and examinees with item preknowledge simultaneously and draw on ideas in ensemble learning to relax several limitations in the work of PW. The suggested approach also provides a confidence score,…

Researchers and practitioners in the field of second language acquisition have come to realize the importance of non-cognitive skills such as self-efficacy and self-regulation in students' learning of a second language. However, there has been limited systematic research on such measures in the second language context and the validity and…

Given the significant global influence of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (CEFR) on English language education, this study deals with aligning a university's academic reading tests to the CEFR. It aimed at validating the test construct of the academic reading tests in relation to the…

This paper presents research and provides a method to ensure that parallel assessments, that are generated from a large test-item database, maintain equitable difficulty and content coverage each time the assessment is presented. To maintain fairness and validity it is important that all instances of an assessment, that is intended to test the…

This study examined the content alignment between an English as a foreign language skills curriculum and a provincial language test in China. When there is misalignment in the content between the standards of a curriculum and a test, conclusions about student abilities and teaching effectiveness can be questioned. To examine this, three categories…

Distractors in tests are included to divert attention away from correct answers choices. Knowing what types of distractors commonly appear in tests will benefit test takers as they can prepare themselves beforehand. Therefore, this qualitative study was aimed at making assumptions on plausible lexical distractors which are expected to appear in…

Cognitive diagnostic models (CDMs) have received much interest within the field of language testing over the last decade due to their great potential to provide diagnostic feedback to all stakeholders and ultimately improve language teaching and learning. A large number of studies have demonstrated the application of CDMs on advanced large-scale…

The main purpose of this quantitative-qualitative content analysis study was to compare IELTS and TOEFL listening and reading tests based on the representation of the learning objectives of Revised Bloom's taxonomy. To this end, 12 Academic IELTS listening and reading tests and 12 TOEFL iBT listening and reading tests were analyzed qualitatively…

The Angoff standard setting method relies on content experts to review exam items and make judgments about the performance of the minimally proficient examinee. Unfortunately, at times content experts may have gaps in their understanding of specific exam content. These gaps are particularly likely to occur when the content domain is broad and/or…

This article begins with a theoretical discussion of the characteristics that a task should feature to be regarded as a mathematics problem suitable for pre-primary students. Those considerations are followed by a report of a classroom experience in which three problems involving quotative or partitive division were posed to pre-primary school…

Research on the test structure of the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) has largely ignored gender, and research on FCI gender effects (often reported as "gender gaps") has seldom interrogated the structure of the test. These rarely crossed streams of research leave open the possibility that the FCI may not be structurally valid across…

This report is the third in a series considering career-readiness features within high school assessments. The goal of this study was to explore international comparisons by applying feature analysis to Korean assessment items. Twenty math test items from the Gyeonggi Province in South Korea along with performance data from roughly 4,000 Grade 12…

Our paper aims at analysing the linguistic "features" produced by Arabic learners of Italian as a foreign language. There are published studies of common errors for Arab students of Italian (Della Puppa, 2006; Giacalone Ramat et al., 2001). However, this study introduces the standardized language assessment, namely the CILS test of…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the only continuing and nationally representative measure of trends in academic achievement of U.S. elementary and secondary school students in various subjects. For more than four decades, NAEP assessments have been conducted periodically in reading, mathematics, science, writing, U.S.…

High-stakes testing is used for the purposes of providing results that have important consequences. Validity is the cornerstone upon which all measurement systems are built. This study applied the Item Response Theory principles to analyse Northwest University Kano Post-UTME Economics test items. The developed fifty (50) economics test items was…