Data collected during psychoeducational evaluations can be compromised by response bias: clients not putting forth sufficient effort on tests, not being motivated to do well, or not being fully honest and careful when completing rating scales and contributing similar self-report data. Some of these problems apply to data from third-party…

Understanding the cognitive processes, skills and strategies that examinees use in testing is important for construct validity and score interpretability. Although response processes evidence has long been included as an important aspect of validity (i.e., "Standards for Educational and Psychological Tests," 1999), relevant studies are…

We propose some theoretical and empirical advances by supplying the methodology for analyzing the factors that influence two sensitive variables when data are collected by randomized response (RR) survey modes. First, we provide the framework for obtaining the maximum likelihood estimates of logistic regression coefficients under the RR simple and…

Social scientists have long agreed that satisficing behavior increases error and reduces the validity of survey data. There have been numerous reviews on detecting satisficing behavior, but preventing this behavior has received less attention. The current narrative review provides empirically supported guidance on preventing satisficing by…

Questionnaires in educational research assessing students' attitudes and beliefs are low-stakes for the students. As a consequence, students might not always consistently respond to a questionnaire scale but instead provide more random response patterns with no clear link to items' contents. We study inter-individual differences in students'…

The measurement of political solidarities and related concepts is an important endeavor in numerous scientific disciplines, such as political and social science research. European surveys, such as the Eurobarometer, frequently measure these concepts for people's home country and Europe raising questions with respect to the order of precedence.…

Careless responding is a pervasive concern in research using affective surveys. Although researchers have considered various methods for identifying careless responses, studies are limited that consider the utility of these methods in the context of computer adaptive testing (CAT) for affective scales. Using a simulation study informed by recent…

Insufficient effort responding (IER) affects many forms of assessment in both educational and psychological contexts. Much research has examined different types of IER, IER's impact on the psychometric properties of test scores, and preprocessing procedures used to detect IER. However, there is a gap in the literature in terms of practical advice…

Identifying and considering test-taking effort is of utmost importance for drawing valid inferences on examinee competency in low-stakes tests. Different approaches exist for doing so. The speed-accuracy+engagement model aims at identifying non-effortful test-taking behavior in terms of nonresponse and rapid guessing based on responses and…

Computer-based administration of large-scale assessments makes it possible to collect a rich set of information on test takers, through analysis of the log files recording interactions between the computer interface and the server. This report examines timing and engagement indicators from the Survey of Adult Skills, a product of the Programme for…

Collecting process data in computer-based assessments provides opportunities to describe examinee behaviour during a test-taking session. The number of actions taken by students while interacting with an item is in this context a variable that has been gaining attention. The present study aims to investigate how the number of actions performed on…

The validity of student evaluation of teaching (SET) scores depends on minimum effect of extraneous response processes or biases. A bias may increase or decrease scores and change the relationship with other variables. In contrast, SET literature defines bias as an irrelevant variable correlated with SET scores, and among many, a relevant biasing…

Self-report is a fundamental research tool for the social sciences. Despite quantitative surveys being the workhorses of the self-report stable, few researchers question their format--often blindly using some form of Labelled Categorical Scale (Likert-type). This study presents a brief review of the current literature examining the efficacy of…

This paper presents a framework for choosing between 4-and 6-point response options for use with online surveys. Using data that have both 4- and 6-point Likert-type items, we compare correlations, fit of factor analytic models, and several different reliability estimates as a way of identifying if there is empirical support for choosing a…

Measuring values in sociological research sometimes involves the use of ranking data. A disadvantage of a ranking assignment is that the order in which the items are presented might influence the choice preferences of respondents regardless of the content being measured. The standard procedure to rule out such effects is to randomize the order of…