Two-tiered assessment structures with paired content and confidence items are frequently used within chemistry assessments to stimulate and measure students' metacognition. The confidence judgment is designed to promote students' reflection on their application of content knowledge and can be characterized as calibrated or miscalibrated based on…

As part of continued efforts to ensure inclusivity in assessment, OCR has developed a set of accessibility principles for question design in GCSE Science examinations, which has been applied since 2018. The principles are intended to help ensure that all students can demonstrate their knowledge, understanding and skills to the best of their…

Multiple choice exams are ubiquitous, but advice on test-taking strategies varies and is not always well informed by research. This study evaluated the question of whether students benefit or are harmed when they change their initial answers on multiple choice questions in the context of physiology and biology courses. Previously marked…

Use of high-stakes exams in a course has been associated with gender, racial, and socioeconomic inequities. We investigated whether offering students the opportunity to retake an exam makes high-stakes exams more equitable. Following the control value theory of achievement emotions, we hypothesized that exam retakes would increase students'…

Testwiseness is defined as the set of cognitive strategies used by a student that is intended to improve his or her score on a test regardless of the test's subject matter. Questions with elements that may be affected by testwiseness are common in physics assessments, even in those which have been extensively validated and widely used as…

Examinee effort can impact the validity of scores on higher education assessments. Many studies of examinee effort have briefly noted gender differences, but gender differences in test-taking effort have not been a primary focus of research. This review of the literature brings together gender-related findings regarding three measures of examinee…

A sample of Australian Year-12 students (n=16) who participated in the TIMSS testing were interviewed immediately after the test about their responses to test items. Students had trouble relating TIMSS questions to generalized aspects of everyday life and to school science topics. Students seemed to place little value on performing well on the…