Researchers developing questionnaire measures of personality, motivation, and self-regulation constructs related to students' achievement and persistence in STEM or other fields rarely have examined whether the items on the measures used are functioning differently across groups, which is necessary for accurate group comparison. The present study…

The study was to identify the load, the type and the significance of differential item functioning (DIF) in constructed response item using the partial credit model (PCM). The data in the study were the students' instruments and the students' responses toward the PISA-like test items that had been completed by 386 ninth grade students and 460…

This study linked ninth-grade student background data and school-reported high school transcript data from the national High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09) to student item responses on the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics assessment to examine the relationships between high school coursework and…

The purpose of this study was to examine the presence of gender and ELL Differential Item Functioning (DIF) in a teacher-created mathematics benchmark test in one public charter school district in Northeast Georgia. DIF occurs when an item behaves differently in different subgroups, rather than measuring a test taker's true ability. The geometry…

The first operational administration of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) took place during the 2014-2015 school year. In addition to the traditional paper-and-pencil format, the assessments were available for administration on a variety of electronic devices, including desktop computers, laptop computers,…

Two test items that examined high school students' beliefs of sample size for large populations using the context of opinion polls conducted prior to national and state elections were developed. A trial of the two items with 21 male and 33 female Year 9 students examined their naive understanding of sample size: over half of students chose a…

This practice test for the Ohio Ninth-grade Proficiency Tests consists of items similar to those that appear on the proficiency test. The writing section contains a prompt that asks the student to write about a hero or heroine. The reading test contains questions based on four reading selections and other reading skill questions not based on a…

Three guides provide sample problems like the ones students would solve on the Colorado Student Assessment Program tests. For each question, the pertinent Colorado state standard is identified. The ninth grade guide contains questions in reading, writing and mathematics; the guide to the 10th grade examination also contains questions related to…

Gender differences in omitting items and guessing on multiple-choice tests were studied in Israel for 302 male and 302 female ninth graders and 150 male and 150 female university applicants. Females tended to omit more items and guess less often than did males. Implications for scoring are discussed. (SLD)

Whether there is a gender-by-item interaction that makes easy mathematics test items easier for females than for males and difficult items harder for females than for males was tested in two studies, involving 10,321 eighth graders and 5332 ninth graders and results from nine mathematics tests. The hypothesis was generally supported, as discussed.…

A practice test has been prepared to give students experience with test items that are similar to those on the Ohio Ninth-grade Proficiency Tests. The practice test consists of one writing prompt, 20 reading questions, 20 mathematics questions, 25 citizenship questions, and 20 science questions. This manual contains instructions to the teacher, as…

The validity of logistic test models and computer simulation methods for generating sampling distributions of item bias statistics was evaluated under the hypothesis of no item bias. Test data from 937 ninth-grade students were used to develop 7 steps for applying computer-simulated baseline statistics in test development. (SLD)

The cognitive structure of an algebra test was defined and validated using the linear test model (LLTM) and quadratic assignment (QA) techniques. The LLTM is an extension of the Rasch model with a linear constraint that describes item difficulty in terms of the cognitive operations required to solve the item. The model permits the specification of…

Six item bias detection techniques (distractor analysis, the Mantel-Haenszel procedure, Angoff's delta plot, Angoff's modified delta plot, Stricker's partial correlation index, and direct comparison of item difficulties) were compared for their ability to identify biased items at three stages of test development. The techniques were applied to…