The findings of previous research into the compatibility of stakeholders' perceptions with statistical estimations of item difficulty are not seemingly consistent. Furthermore, most research shows that teachers' estimation of item difficulty is not reliable since they tend to overestimate the difficulty of easy items and underestimate the…

Challenges to measuring students' attitudes toward statistics remain despite decades of focused research. Measuring the expectancy-value theory (EVT) Cost construct has been especially challenging owing in part to the historical lack of research about it. To measure the EVT Cost construct better, this study asked university students to respond to…

This research is a developmental research aiming at developing a good mathematical test instrument using polytomous responses based on classical and modern theories. This research design uses the Plomp model, which consists of five stages, (1) preliminary investigation, (2) design, (3) realization/construction, (4) revision, and (5) implementation…

Researchers often develop instruments using correctness scores (and a variety of theories and techniques, such as Item Response Theory) for validation and scoring. Less frequently, observations of children's strategies are incorporated into the design, development, and application of assessments. We conducted individual interviews of 833…

Student Experience surveys are used to measure student attitudes towards their campus as well as to initiate conversations for institutional change. Validity evidence to support the interpretations of these surveys' results, however, is lacking. The first purpose of this study was to compare three Differential Item Functioning (DIF) methods on…

Optics is a core field in the curricula of secondary physics education. In this study, we present the development and validation of a test instrument in the field of optics, the ray optics in converging lenses concept inventory (ROC-CI). It was developed for and validated with middle school students, but can also be adapted for the use in higher…

This study examines measurement invariance of student perceptions of teaching quality collected in five countries: Indonesia (n students = 6,331), the Netherlands (n students = 6,738), South Africa (n students = 3,422), South Korea (n students = 6,997) and Spain (n students = 4,676). The administered questionnaire was the My Teacher Questionnaire…

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have the potential to reduce the workload for the second language (L2) teachers and test developers. We propose two AI distractor-generating methods for creating Chinese vocabulary items: semantic similarity and visual similarity. Semantic similarity refers to antonyms and synonyms, while visual similarity…

Purpose: This study examined the quality of English test items using psychometric and linguistic characteristics among Grade Six pupils. Method: Contrary to the conventional approach of relying only on statistics when investigating item quality, this study adopted a mixed-method approach by employing psychometric analysis and cognitive interviews.…

Developing scientific literacy for all students is the most often stated purpose of contemporary science education. Nature of science (NOS) is seen as an important component of scientific literacy. There are various perceptions of NOS in the science education community and NOS itself is an ever-changing construct. This makes it challenging to…

This paper reports the development and empirical testing of a model of the factors that influence the teaching-research nexus. No prior work has attempted to create a measurement model of the nexus. The conceptual model is derived from 19 propositions grouped into four sets of factors relating to: rewards, researchers, curriculum, and students.…

Responses of 223 students in grades 6 to 11 to questions related to beliefs about getting out of bed on the left side are analysed from two perspectives. On one hand the items explore subjective beliefs about chance. On the other hand the different wording and context of the items provide opportunity to show different levels of understanding of…

We report here on a comparative study of middle school students' attitudes towards science involving three countries: England, Singapore and the U.S.A. Complete attitudinal data sets from TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) 2011 were used, thus giving a very large sample size (N = 20,246), compared to other studies in the…

Valid and reliable standardized assessment of nursing competencies is needed to monitor the quality of vocational education and training (VET) in nursing and evaluate learning outcomes for care work trainees with increasingly heterogeneous learning backgrounds. To date, however, the modeling of professional competencies has not yet evolved into…

Objective: The goal of this study was to take an in-depth look at why college students do (or do not) seek health information, and how they seek information when they do. Design: Qualitative content analysis of responses to an open-ended prompt embedded in a survey about health information seeking behaviours. Setting: Nearly 700 (N?=?697) college…