Response Time Effort

Wise and Kong (2005) defined an index to flag examinees not putting forth minimal effort, based on their response time.  It is called the response time effort (RTE) index. Let K be the number of items in the test. The RTE for each examinee…
Holland K

Holland K Index and K Variants for Psychometric Forensics

The Holland K index and variants are probability-based indices for psychometric forensics like the Bellezza & Bellezza indices, but make use of conditional information in their calculations.  All three estimate the probability of observing…

What's the difference between Assess.ai and FastTest?

FastTest has been ASC's flagship platform for the past decade, securely delivering millions of exams, loaded with best practices like computerized adaptive testing and item response theory. FastTest is based off decades of experience in computerized…
item review SME

What is online proctoring?

Online proctoring has been around for over a decade by now. But given the recent outbreak of COVID-19, educational and workforce/certification institutions are scrambling to change their operations, and a huge part of this is an incredible…
item distractor students

What is an item distractor?

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An item distractor, also known as a foil or a trap, is an incorrect option for a selected-response item on an assessment. What makes a good item distractor? One word: plausibility.  We need the item distractor to attract examinees. …
item review SME

What are the best practices for test item review?

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What is item review?  It is the process of performing quality control on items before they are ever delivered to examinees.  This is an absolutely essential step in the development of items for medium and high stakes exams; while…

What are technology enhanced items?

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Technology enhanced items are assessment items (questions) that utilize technology to improve the interaction of the item, over and above what is possible with paper.  Technology enhanced items can improve examinee engagement (important…
automated item generation AI

What is automated item generation?

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Automated item generation (AIG) is a paradigm for developing assessment items, aka test questions, utilizing principles of artificial intelligence and automation. As the name suggests, it tries to automate some or all of the effort involved…
educational standards

Three Ways the Word "Standard" is used in Assessment

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If you have worked in the field of assessment and psychometrics, you have undoubtedly encountered the word "standard." While a relatively simple word, it has the potential to be confusing because it is used in three (and more!) completely…
Generalized-partial-credit-model

WHAT IS THE GENERALIZED PARTIAL CREDIT MODEL?

The generalized partial credit model (GPCM; Muraki, 1992) is one of the family of models from item response theory.  It is designed to work, as you might have guess, with items that are partial credit.  That is, instead of just right/wrong…

What are the possible transformations for scaled scoring?

I was recently asked about scaled scoring and if the transformation must be based on the normal curve. This is an important question, especially since most human traits fall in a fairly normal distribution, and item response theory places…
David Weiss Vale

Assessment Systems is 40!

Happy birthday to us! We’re 40 years old! To celebrate our 40th birthday, we thought we’d do something big. But before we cheers to the Big 4-0, we want to travel back to 1979.  In the ‘70s, Dr. David J. Weiss and his team at…