Applications of Educational Measurement: Is Optimum Optimal?

Barbara S. Plake

Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice Vol. 12, No. 1 (1993) pp. 5–10

The development of a hypothetical testing program designed to provide optimum information about student achievement is chronicled. Computer adaptive testing and performance testing are postulated as part of the program. What optimum information...

Effects of Informed Item Selection on Test Performance and Anxiety for Examinees Administered a Self-Adapted Test

Barbara S. Plake

Educational and Psychological Measurement Vol. 55, No. 5 (1995) pp. 736–42

No significant differences in performance on a self-adapted test or anxiety were found for college students (n=218) taking a self-adapted test who selected item difficulty without any prior information, inspected an item before selecting, or...

Factors Influencing Intrajudge Consistency during Standard-Setting

Barbara S. Plake

Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice Vol. 10, No. 2 (1991) pp. 15–16

Possible sources of intrajudge inconsistency in standard setting are reviewed, and approaches are presented to improve the accuracy of rating. Procedures for providing judges with feedback through discussion or computerized communication are...

Monte Carlo Simulation Comparison of Two-Stage Testing and Computerized Adaptive Testing

Haeok Kim; Barbara S. Plake

A two-stage testing strategy is one method of adapting the difficulty of a test to an individual's ability level in an effort to achieve more precise measurement. A routing test provides an initial estimate of ability level, and a second-stage...

Comparison of Methods for Combining the Minimum Passing Levels for Individual Items into a Passing Score for a Test

Barbara S. Plake; Michael T. Kane

Journal of Educational Measurement Vol. 28, No. 3 (1991) pp. 249–56

Several methods for determining a passing score on an examination from individual raters' estimates of minimal pass levels were compared through simulation. The methods used differed in the weighting estimates for each item received in the...

Computer-Based Testing in Higher Education

Steven L. Wise; Barbara S. Plake

Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development Vol. 23, No. 1 (1990) pp. 3–10

Discusses the unique advantages provided by computer-based (CB) testing. Describes the various forms of CB tests used in higher education and the variety of testing applications of computers in colleges and universities. Presents psychometric issues ...

Interactive Study Lessons to Complement ANOVA

Craig W. Johnson; Barbara S. Plake

This project developed and evaluated a series of interactive study modules for students taking a course in Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) techniques using the IBM Interactive Instructional System (IIS) software. Exercises were general enough to be...

Interactive Study Lessons to Complement ANOVA

Craig W. Johnson; Barbara S. Plake

Journal of Educational Research Vol. 75, No. 1 (1981) pp. 41–43

Using the IBM Interactive Instructional System software, a series of interactive study modules for college students taking a course in analysis of variance techniques was developed. Results of the study show that students responded positively and...

Evaluation of PLATO Library Instructional Lessons: Another View

Kathleen A. Johnson; Barbara S. Plake

Journal of Academic Librarianship Vol. 6, No. 3 (July 1980) pp. 154–58

Results of a project at the University of Nebraska--Lincoln showed that computer-assisted instruction (using the PLATO system) and tutorial methods were somewhat more effective than the traditional library orientation tour for teaching card catalog...

Research on the Effects of Administering Tests via Computers

Steven L. Wise; Barbara S. Plake

Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice Vol. 8, No. 3 (1989) pp. 5–10

Research dealing with the administration of tests via computer is reviewed. Several issues related to computerized testing are discussed, and areas in need of additional research are identified. The focus is on education-related ability and...

The Effect of Including Pretest Items in an Operational Computerized Adaptive Test: Do Different Ability Examinees Spend Different Amounts of Time on Embedded Pretest Items?

Abdullah A. Ferdous; Barbara S. Plake; Shu-Ren Chang

Educational Assessment Vol. 12, No. 2 (2007) pp. 161–173

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of pretest items on response time in an operational, fixed-length, time-limited computerized adaptive test (CAT). These pretest items are embedded within the CAT, but unlike the operational items,...

Response Times for Correct and Incorrect Item Responses on Computerized Adaptive Tests

Shu-Ren Chang; Barbara S. Plake; Abdullah A. Ferdous

Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association 2005 (April 2005)

This study examined the time different ability level examinees spend taking a CAT on demanding items to these examinees. It was also found that high able examinees spend more time on the pretest items, which are not tailored to the examinees'...

Development and Application of Detection Indices for Measuring Guessing Behaviors and Test-Taking Effort in Computerized Adaptive Testing

Shu-Ren Chang; Barbara S. Plake; Gene A. Kramer; Shu-Mei Lien

Educational and Psychological Measurement Vol. 71, No. 3 (June 2011) pp. 437–459

This study examined the amount of time that different ability-level examinees spend on questions they answer correctly or incorrectly across different pretest item blocks presented on a fixed-length, time-restricted computerized adaptive testing ...