Research on the test structure of the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) has largely ignored gender, and research on FCI gender effects (often reported as "gender gaps") has seldom interrogated the structure of the test. These rarely crossed streams of research leave open the possibility that the FCI may not be structurally valid across…

This paper explores, through the use of the observation checklist and Conversation Analysis (CA), the discourse functions elicited by the dialogic task of the Free University of Bolzano (IT) speaking test. It aims to contribute to content validation, which has been claimed to be especially relevant in paired speaking tests, where interaction is…

To investigate the congruence between the requisite postgraduate academic language skills and the language skills measured by the General English section of the Iranian National PhD Entrance exam, field specialist informants, language-specialist informants and post-graduate students were questioned. The informants' data were collected through…

This study evaluates the impact of common item characteristics on the outcome of equating in credentialing examinations when traditionally recommended representation is not possible. This research used real data sets from several credentialing exams to test the impact of content representation, item statistics, and number of common items on…

Organic chemistry is often promoted as a course designed to cultivate skill in scientific "ways of thinking." Expert organic chemists perceive their field as one in which plausible answers to complex questions are arrived at through analytical thought processes. They draw analogy between problem solving in organic chemistry and diagnosis…

The aim of this mixed methods study is to identify the underlying structure of the construct of Foreign Language Anxiety in integrated listening-to-speak tasks. First, the analysis of the qualitative interviews with six postsecondary ESL learners reveals that anxiety for integrated speaking stems from four different factors: "listening,"…

The current study reports the results of a project aimed at assessing L2 listening comprehension by drawing on two approaches to dynamic assessment: interventionist and interactionist. The former approach was actualized by providing two graduated hints which were fixed and standardized for all test takers while the latter was actualized by asking…

This report is the third in a series considering career-readiness features within high school assessments. The goal of this study was to explore international comparisons by applying feature analysis to Korean assessment items. Twenty math test items from the Gyeonggi Province in South Korea along with performance data from roughly 4,000 Grade 12…

In Mongolia, teachers' attitudes towards large-scale assessments have been a largely uncovered area. Therefore, this paper focuses on examining the general overview of English language teachers' belief about state-level assessments, and their reflection on teaching practices. Participants of this study were 307 teachers of primary and secondary…

Evidence of comparability is generally needed whenever there are variations in the conditions of an assessment administration, including variations introduced by the administration of an assessment on multiple digital devices (e.g., tablet, laptop, desktop). This article is meant to provide a comprehensive examination of issues relevant to the…

Test-takers' voices in relation to high-stakes language tests have received growing attention in recent years. While the perspectives of this stakeholder group can be utilised to improve test quality, test-taking experience, and test impact, we argue that this goal needs to be achieved by considering a fundamental shift in our conceptualisation of…

In recent years, large-scale international assessments have been increasingly used to evaluate and compare the quality of education across regions and countries. However, measurement variance between different versions of these assessments often posts threats to the validity of such cross-cultural comparisons. In this study, we investigated the…

Testing organization needs large numbers of high-quality items due to the proliferation of alternative test administration methods and modern test designs. But the current demand for items far exceeds the supply. Test items, as they are currently written, evoke a process that is both time-consuming and expensive because each item is written,…

Language is frequently discussed as barrier to mathematics word problems. Hence this paper presents the initial findings of a linguistic analysis of numeracy skills test sample items. The theoretical perspective of multi-modal text analysis underpinned this study, in which data was extracted from the ten sample numeracy test items released by the…

Despite the need for writing competence in and out of school, writing has been deemed the neglected "R" in educational practice. Moreover, many students do not meet expected standards of writing performance. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS), adopted by 45 states, provides an opportunity to change the state of writing instruction on…