This study explores the affordances that the open-ended questions hold in comparison with those of closed-ended questions through examining 6th grade students' performance on a mathematics test. For this purpose, a questionnaire including 2 open-ended and 2 closed-ended questions was applied to 36 6th grade students. The questions were prepared in…

This classroom experiment investigates the effects of adding representational pictures to multiple-choice and constructed-response test items to understand the role of the response format for the multimedia effect in testing. Participants were 575 fifth- and sixth-graders who answered 28 science test items--seven items in each of four experimental…

Item stem formats can alter the cognitive complexity as well as the type of abilities required for solving mathematics items. Consequently, it is possible that item stem formats can affect the dimensional structure of mathematics assessments. This empirical study investigated the relationship between item stem format and the dimensionality of…

Given the key role of conversions of representations for mathematical understanding, it is highly relevant to investigate in detail competencies regarding conversions of representations. In particular, a corresponding competence model should not only be developed theoretically, but also examined empirically. However, such empirical studies are…

This study describes Singapore students' (N = 607) performance on a recently developed Mathematics Processing Instrument (MPI). The MPI comprised tasks sourced from Australia's NAPLAN and Singapore's PSLE. In addition, the MPI had a corresponding question which encouraged students to describe how they solved the respective tasks. In particular,…

The aim of the present study was to develop an on-line assessment system with constructed response items in the context of elementary mathematics curriculum. The system recorded the problem solving process of constructed response items and transfered the process to response codes for further analyses. An inference mechanism based on artificial…

This study used innovative assessment practices to obtain and document broad learning outcomes for a 15-hour game-based curriculum in Quest Atlantis, a multi-user virtual environment that supports school-based participation in socio scientific inquiry in ecological sciences. Design-based methods were used to refine and align the enactment of…

The IRT (Item Response Theory) has been studied and applied in computer-based test for decades. However, almost of all these existing studies evaluated focus merely on test questions with text-based (or static text/graphic) type of presentation form illustrated exclusively. In this paper, we present our study on test questions using both…

The differences in responses of grade 6 boys and girls to selected items on a standardized test are examined. Data are the responses of approximately 36,000 children during 1978-79 to two test forms of the California Assessment Program's Survey of Basic Skills: Grade 6 (SBS:6). Performance on specific arithmetic items is studied and involves the…