Two-tiered assessment structures with paired content and confidence items are frequently used within chemistry assessments to stimulate and measure students' metacognition. The confidence judgment is designed to promote students' reflection on their application of content knowledge and can be characterized as calibrated or miscalibrated based on…

On the basis of the results of two prior studies at the US Naval Academy (USNA), which described the choice of study resources and the self-reported learning approaches of students of differing achievement levels, the current investigation examines how students of differing achievement levels in general chemistry actually solve multiple-choice…

Chemistry faculty members are highly skilled in obtaining, analyzing, and interpreting physical measurements, but often they are less skilled in measuring student learning. This work provides guidance for chemistry faculty from the research literature on multiple-choice item development in chemistry. Areas covered include content, stem, and…

Terms to be familiar with before you start to solve the test: protein synthesis, ribosomes, amino acids, peptides, peptide bond, polypeptide chain, N- and C-terminus, hemoglobin, [alpha]- and [beta]-globin chains, radioactive labeling, [[to the third power]H] and [[to the fourteenth power]C]leucine, cytosol, differential centrifugation, density…

High test scores may measure general intelligence or test taking "savvy" rather than acquisition of knowledge of a particular subject. Pretests may help instructors differentiate between material students already know and good performance based on flaws in the wording of tests as indicated by pretests administered to college chemistry…

Test-wiseness strategies used by 11 general chemistry students as they answered a 15-item multiple choice examination were investigated using a think-aloud technique. The most common strategies were those that did not compromise the validity of the examination: error avoidance, elimination of incorrect responses, checking responses, and optimal…

Ability estimates yielded by the one- (1PL), two- (2PL), and three-parameter (3PL) models and the nominal response model (NRM) were compared with the number-right (NR) scoring model using items not susceptible to test-wiseness (NTW) and items susceptible to the ID1 test-wiseness strategy. These items were contained in grade 12 diploma examinations…

A university chemistry comprehensive final examination was analyzed to determine the extent to which it reflected the subject matter of the corresponding degree program. Although the various courses seemed adequately represented, the sampling of topics within a course tended to be low. The appropriateness of this form of assessment is discussed.…

Analysis of response strategies employed by 261 undergraduate chemistry students when answering multiple-choice and stem-equivalent constructed-response questions revealed no significant differences in types of solution strategies or types of errors across test format. However, analysis of student oral reports revealed a higher frequency of…