In many countries, standardized math tests are important for achieving academic success. Here, we examine whether content of items, the story that explains a mathematical question, biases performance of low-SES students. In a large-scale cohort study of Trends in International Mathematics and Science Studies (TIMSS)--including data from 58…

Understanding test-taking strategies (TTSs) and the variables that influence TTSs is crucial to understanding what reading comprehension tests measure. We examined how passage and student characteristics were associated with TTSs and their impact on response accuracy. Third (n = 78), fifth (n = 86), and eighth (n = 86) graders read and answered…

As highlighted in the literature, one of the main difficulties in mathematics is the management of different semiotic representations. This difficulty occurs in verticals throughout schooling and is often an obstacle to the proper learning process of mathematics. The present study aims to investigate the different facets of these difficulties with…

The aim of this study is to construct a STEM competencies assessment framework and provide validity evidence by empirically testing its structure. Common interdisciplinary assessment frameworks for STEM seem to be scarce in the literature. Many studies use students' mathematics or science scores obtained from large-scale assessments or exams to…

This article proposes a class of cognitive diagnosis models (CDMs) for polytomously scored items with different link functions. Many existing polytomous CDMs can be considered as special cases of the proposed class of polytomous CDMs. Simulation studies were carried out to investigate the feasibility of the proposed CDMs and the performance of…

This study aims to evaluate exam questions set by science teachers for eighth grade students and science questions from a central high school entrance exam (HSEE) according to the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy (RBT). In this study, document analysis technique was employed, as one of the recognized methods of qualitative research. The HSEE science…

Progressing from additive to multiplicative thinking is a key outcome of school mathematics, making ratios an essential topic of study in junior secondary. In this study, 15 Australian Year 8 students were administered a ratio test followed by semi-structured interviews to explore their conceptions of ratio prior to formal instruction. In this…

Test-taking experience is a consequence of the interaction between students and assessment properties. We define a new notion, rapid-pacing behavior, to reflect two types of test-taking experience -- disengagement and speededness. To identify rapid-pacing behavior, we extend existing methods to develop response-time thresholds for individual items…

This study seeks to ascertain the degree to which context-based items are offered in Turkish mathematics textbooks as well as the quality of the items in terms of item writing guidelines, whether or not they are given as traditional or context-based. A qualitative research approach is used in this study. The eighth-grade mathematics textbook used…

This research uses Rasch model analysis to identify the reliability and separation index of an integrated mathematics test instrument with a cultural architecture structure in measuring students' mathematical thinking abilities. The study involved 357 students from six eighth-grade public junior high schools in Bima. The selection of schools was…

It has become a critical question what the reliability level would be when open-ended questions are used in large-scale selection tests. One of the aims of the present study is to determine what the reliability would be in the event that the answers given by test-takers are scored by experts when open-ended short answer questions are used in…

In test equating, one critical equating property is the group invariance property which indicates that the equating function used to convert performance on each alternate form to the reporting scale should be the same for various subgroups. To mitigate the impact of disrupted learning on the item parameters during the COVID-19 pandemic, a…

Intervention research in education is sometimes criticized for the use of experimenter developed assessments, especially when these are over aligned with treatment. At the same time, intervention researchers sometimes prefer locally developed assessments because they appear to be more sensitive to treatment effects even when the test is not…

Differential Item Function (DIF) analysis is commonly employed to examine potential bias produced by a test item. Since its introduction DIF analyses have focused on potential bias related to broad categories of oppression, including gender, racial stratification, economic class, and ableness. More recently, efforts to examine the effects of…

The aim of this study is to examine whether or not the positive and negative items in the Mathematical Self-Confidence Scale employed in TIMSS 2015 lead to wording effect. While examining whether the expression effect is present or not, analyzes were conducted both on the general sample and on a separate sample for female and male students. To…