Examinees with item preknowledge tend to obtain inflated test scores that undermine test score validity. With the availability of process data collected in computer-based assessments, the research on detecting item preknowledge has progressed on using both item scores and response times. Item revisit patterns of examinees can also be utilized as…

Relieving test anxiety actions range from relaxation exercises to prescription medication. Humor can be a simple method of test anxiety relief. The current study was used to determine if humor, in the form of a cartoon, placed on the splash page of an online exam improved the test scores of students who have high test anxiety. In the current…

Language proficiency tests have become common instruments to judge people based on their performance. Thus, the scores on language proficiency tests, such as the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) or Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), play a crucial role in the test-takers' lives. Because of increasing demands on…

Many important high-stakes decisions--college admission, academic performance evaluation, and even job promotion--depend on accurate and reliable scores from valid large-scale assessments. However, examinees sometimes cheat by copying answers from other test-takers or practicing with test items ahead of time, which can undermine the effectiveness…

Instructors are often concerned when giving multiple-day tests because students taking the test later in the exam period may have an advantage over students taking the test early in the exam period due to information leakage. However, exam scores seemed to decline as students took the same test later in a multi-day exam period (Mouritsen and…

The idea that test anxiety hurts performance is deeply ingrained in American culture and schools. However, researchers have found that it is actually worry about performance and anxiety--not bodily feelings of anxiety (emotionality)--that impairs performance. Drawing on this insight, anxiety reappraisal interventions encourage the view that…

There is a lack of standardized instruction among the different General Educational Development (GED) preparatory programs in the country as a result of different state requirements for taking the GED exams. As such, the purpose of this quantitative non-experimental correlational study is to examine if scores of students on GED Ready Opt and the…

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether students are more successful on abstract or illustrated test questions. To this end, the questions on an abstract test were changed into a visual format, and these tests were administered every three days to a total of 240 students at six middle schools located in the Erzurum city center and…

To examine the effects of listening test preparation, we had three groups, two experimental and one control (63 learners total), partake in three types of instruction sandwiched between two equally difficult listening tests (pretests and posttests). The first experimental group took four practice tests and received "explicit"…

We investigated processes underlying performance decrements of highly test-anxious persons. Three experiments contrasted conditions that differed in the degree of activation of concepts related to failure. Participants memorized a list of words either containing words related to failure or containing no words related to failure in Experiment 1. In…

In this study, we propose that the unique needs and characteristics of linguistic minorities should be considered throughout the test development process. Unlike most measurement invariance investigations in the assessment of linguistic minorities, which typically are conducted after test administration, we propose strategies that focus on the…

Online higher education institutions are presented with the concern of how to obtain valid results when administering student learning outcomes (SLO) assessments remotely. Traditionally, there has been a great reliance on unproctored Internet test administration (UIT) due to increased flexibility and reduced costs; however, a number of validity…

This paper reports on an investigation into the relationship of test-takers' use of test-wiseness strategies to Chinese EFL learners' reading test performance. A test-wiseness questionnaire was administered immediately after the final achievement test to probe into how learners thought while completing the reading section of the test. It was found…

This study investigates how factors such as student achievement goals for a course, language skills, outside work commitments, and test anxiety are related to performance on multiple-choice exams and nonexam assignments. The study also explores whether these factors explain the time taken to complete exams and whether exam completion speed is…

This study assessed the test-taking skills of 776 high school students, 35 of whom were diagnosed with learning disabilities (LD). Students completed a computerized battery of timed reading tests as well as scales that assess test anxiety and test-taking perceptions. Students with LD obtained lower scores than the nondisabled group on all of the…