This article is concerned with the statistical detection of copying on multiple-choice exams. As an alternative to existing permutation- and model-based copy-detection approaches, a simple randomization p-value (RP) test is proposed. The RP test, which is based on an intuitive match-score statistic, makes no assumptions about the distribution of…

In various fields, including college admission, medical board certifications, and military recruitment, high-stakes decisions are frequently made based on scores obtained from large-scale assessments. These decisions necessitate precise and reliable scores that enable valid inferences to be drawn about test-takers. However, the ability of such…

For any testing programs that administer multiple forms across multiple years, maintaining score comparability via equating is essential. With continuous testing and high-stakes results, especially with less secure online administrations, testing programs must consider the potential for cheating on their exams. This study used empirical and…

Unusual response similarity among test takers may occur in testing data and be an indicator of potential test fraud (e.g., examinees copy responses from other examinees, send text messages or pre-arranged signals among themselves for the correct response, item pre-knowledge). One index to measure the degree of similarity between two response…

The dimensionality is one of the most investigated concepts in the psychological assessment, and there are many ways to determine the dimensionality of a measured construct. The Automated Item Selection Procedure (AISP) and the DETECT are non-parametric methods aiming to determine the factorial structure of a data set. In the current study,…

Data mining methods have drawn considerable attention across diverse scientific fields. However, few applications could be found in the areas of psychological and educational measurement, and particularly pertinent to this article, in test security research. In this study, various data mining methods for detecting cheating behaviors on large-scale…

Researchers frequently use machine-learning methods in many fields. In the area of detecting fraud in testing, there have been relatively few studies that have used these methods to identify potential testing fraud. In this study, a technical review of a recently developed state-of-the-art algorithm, Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), is…

Unlike the traditional multiple-choice (MC) format, the discrete-option multiple-choice (DOMC) format does not necessarily reveal all answer options to an examinee. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the reduced exposure of item content affects test security. We conducted an experiment in which participants were allowed to view…

This study examines and compares four person-fit statistics (PFSs) in the framework of the "D"- scoring method (DSM): (a) van der Flier's "U3" statistic; (b) "Ud" statistic, as a modification of "U3" under the DSM; (c) "Zd" statistic, as a modification of the "Z3 (l[subscript z])"…

In educational and psychological measurement, researchers and/or practitioners are often interested in examining whether the ability of an examinee is the same over two sets of items. Such problems can arise in measurement of change, detection of cheating on unproctored tests, erasure analysis, detection of item preknowledge etc. Traditional…

The modern web-based technology greatly popularizes computer-administered testing, also known as online testing. When these online tests are administered continuously within a certain "testing window," many items are likely to be exposed and compromised, posing a type of test security concern. In addition, if the testing time is limited,…

According to Wollack and Schoenig (2018), benefitting from item preknowledge is one of the three broad types of test fraud that occur in educational assessments. We use tools from constrained statistical inference to suggest a new statistic that is based on item scores and response times and can be used to detect the examinees who may have…

An increasing concern of producers of educational assessments is fraudulent behavior during the assessment (van der Linden, 2009). Benefiting from item preknowledge (e.g., Eckerly, 2017; McLeod, Lewis, & Thissen, 2003) is one type of fraudulent behavior. This article suggests two new test statistics for detecting individuals who may have…

The research focused on development, validation and standardization of a diagnostic instrument called Tertiary Examination Behaviour Inventory (TEBI) for determining the tendency of students in tertiary institutions to participate in academic cheating. Anchored on the Modified Theory of Planned Behaviour (MTPB) and Item Response Theory (IRT), the…

In high-stakes, large-scale, standardized tests with certain time limits, examinees are likely to engage in either one of the three types of behavior (e.g., van der Linden & Guo, 2008; Wang & Xu, 2015): solution behavior, rapid guessing behavior, and cheating behavior. Oftentimes examinees do not always solve all items due to various…