Several studies have been published on disengaged test respondents, and others have analyzed disengaged survey respondents separately. For many large-scale assessments, students answer questionnaire and test items in succession. This study examines the percentage of students who continuously engage in disengaged responding behaviors across…

With the use of computerized testing, ordinary assessments can capture both answer accuracy and answer response time. For the Canadian Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) numeracy and literacy subtests, person ability, person speed, question difficulty, question time intensity, fluency (rate), person fluency…

In large-scale low-stake assessment such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), students may skip items (missingness) which are within their ability to complete. The detection and taking care of these noneffortful responses, as a measure of test-taking motivation, is an important issue in modern psychometric models.…

Indiscriminate (i.e., carless, random, insufficient effort) responses, commonly believed to weaken effect sizes and produce Type II errors, can inflate effect sizes and potentially produce Type I errors where a supposedly significant result is actually artifactual. We demonstrate how indiscriminate responses can produce spuriously high…

The item wording (or keying) effect is respondents' differential response style to positively and negatively worded items. Despite decades of research, the nature of the effect is still unclear. This article proposes a potential reason; namely, that the item wording effect is scale-specific, and thus findings are applicable only to a particular…

Using randomly ordered name generators, we tested the effect of name generators' relative position on the likelihood of respondents' declining to respond or satisficing in their response. An online survey of public health staff elicited names of information sources, information seekers, perceived experts, and friends. Results show that when name…

The validity of student evaluation of teaching (SET) scores depends on minimum effect of extraneous response processes or biases. A bias may increase or decrease scores and change the relationship with other variables. In contrast, SET literature defines bias as an irrelevant variable correlated with SET scores, and among many, a relevant biasing…

Rapid response behaviour, a type of test disengagement, cannot be interpreted as a true indicator of the targeted constructs and may compromise score accuracy as well as score validity for interpretation. Rapid responding may be due to multiple factors for diverse populations. In this study, using Programme for International Student Assessment…

This paper explores the impact of test-taking conditions on the quality of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) assessment. Interviewers record information about the room of assessment and interruptions that occurred during each interview. These observations, along with information on interviewer assignment…

To measure the response style of acquiescence, researchers recommend the use of at least 15 items with heterogeneous content. Such an approach is consistent with its theoretical definition and is a substantial improvement over traditional methods. Nevertheless, measurement of acquiescence can be enhanced by two additional considerations: first, to…

When memory is tested, researchers are often interested in the items that were correctly recalled or recognized, while ignoring or factoring out trials where one "recalls" or "recognizes" a nonstudied item. However, intrusions and false alarms are more than nuisance data and can provide key insights into the memory system. The…

In this study, we investigated how empirical indicators of test-taking engagement can be defined, empirically validated, and used to describe group differences in the context of the Programme of International Assessment of Adult Competences (PIAAC). The approach was to distinguish between disengaged and engaged response behavior by means of…

Previous research has found the effects of acquiescence to be generally consistent across item "aggregates" within a single survey (i.e., essential tau-equivalence), but it is unknown whether this phenomenon is consistent at the" individual item" level. This article evaluated the often assumed but inadequately tested…

Neurologically normal individuals exhibit strong leftward response biases during free-viewing perceptual judgments of brightness, quantity, and size. When participants view two mirror-reversed objects and they are forced to choose which object appears darker, more numerous, or larger, the stimulus with the relevant feature on the left side is…

Examined whether the Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons test could be faked by 38 physical therapy students who took the test once honestly and once faking positive attitudes. Results showed fake scores were significantly higher than honest scores, indicating that respondents were able to fake positive responses. (JAC)