Do you conduct adaptive testing research? Perhaps a thesis or dissertation? Or maybe you have developed adaptive tests and have a technical report or validity study? I encourage you to check out the Journal of Computerized Adaptive Testing as a publication outlet for your adaptive testing research. JCAT is the official journal of the International Association for Computerized Adaptive Testing (IACAT), a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the science of assessments.
JCAT has an absolutely stellar board of editors and was founded to focus on improving the dissemination of research in adaptive testing. The IACAT website also contains a comprehensive bibliography of research in adaptive testing, across all journals and tech reports, for the past 50 years. IACAT was founded at the 2009 conference on computerized adaptive testing and has since held conferences every other year as well as hosting the JCAT journal.
Potential research topics at the JCAT journal
Here are some of the potential research topics:
- Item selection algorithms
- Item exposure algorithms
- Termination criteria
- Cognitive diagnostic models
- Simulation studies
- Validation studies
- Item response theory models
- Multistage testing
- Use of adaptive testing in new(er) situations, like patient reported outcomes
- Design of actual adaptive assessments and their release into the wild
If you are not involved in CAT research but are interested, please visit the IACAT and journal website to read the articles. Access is free. JCAT would also appreciate it if you would share this information to colleagues so that they might consider publication.
Nathan Thompson earned his PhD in Psychometrics from the University of Minnesota, with a focus on computerized adaptive testing. His undergraduate degree was from Luther College with a triple major of Mathematics, Psychology, and Latin. He is primarily interested in the use of AI and software automation to augment and replace the work done by psychometricians, which has provided extensive experience in software design and programming. Dr. Thompson has published over 100 journal articles and conference presentations, but his favorite remains https://scholarworks.umass.edu/pare/vol16/iss1/1/ .