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Standard-setting Study
Standard-setting study is an official research study conducted by an organization that sponsors tests to determine a cutscore for the test. To be legally defensible in the US, in particular for high-stakes assessments, and meet the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, a cutscore cannot be arbitrarily determined; it must be empirically justified. For example, the organization cannot merely decide that the cutscore will be 70% correct. Instead, a study is conducted to determine what score best differentiates the classifications of examinees, such as competent vs. incompetent. Such studies require quite an amount of resources, involving a number of professionals, in particular with psychometric background. Standard-setting studies are for that reason impractical for regular class room situations, yet in every layer of education, standard setting is performed and multiple methods exist. Standard-setting studies are typically performed using focus groups of 5-15 subjec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Test (student Assessment)
An examination (exam or evaluation) or test is an educational assessment intended to measure a test-taker's knowledge, skill, aptitude, physical fitness, or classification in many other topics (e.g., beliefs). A test may be administered verbally, on paper, on a computer, or in a predetermined area that requires a test taker to demonstrate or perform a set of skills. Tests vary in style, rigor and requirements. There is no general consensus or invariable standard for test formats and difficulty. Often, the format and difficulty of the test is dependent upon the educational philosophy of the instructor, subject matter, class size, policy of the educational institution, and requirements of accreditation or governing bodies. A test may be administered formally or informally. An example of an informal test is a reading test administered by a parent to a child. A formal test might be a final examination administered by a teacher in a classroom or an IQ test administered by a psych ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High-stakes Testing
A high-stakes test is a test with important consequences for the test taker. Passing has important benefits, such as a high school diploma, a scholarship, or a license to practice a profession. Failing has important disadvantages, such as being forced to take remedial classes until the test can be passed, not being allowed to drive a car, or difficulty finding employment. The use and misuse of high-stakes tests are a controversial topic in public education, especially in the United States and U.K., where they have become especially popular in recent years, used not only to assess school-age students but in attempts to increase teacher accountability. Definitions In common usage, a high-stakes test is any test that has major consequences or is the basis of a major decision. Under a more precise definition, a high-stakes test is any test that: * is a single, defined assessment, * has a clear line drawn between those who pass and those who fail, and * has direct consequences for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Standards For Educational And Psychological Testing
''The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing'' is a set of testing Standards organization, standards developed jointly by the American Educational Research Association (AERA), American Psychological Association (APA), and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME). The new edition of ''The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing'' was released in July 2014. Five areas received particular attention in the 2014 revision: 1. Examining accountability issues associated with the uses of tests in educational policy 2. Broadening the concept of accessibility of tests for all examinees 3. Representing more comprehensively the role of tests in the workplace 4. Taking into account the expanding role of technology in testing 5. Improving the structure of the book for better communication of the standards Previous versions It was published on 1985, the 1999 ''Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing'' has more in-depth background material in ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Criterion-referenced Test
A criterion-referenced test is a style of test which uses test scores to generate a statement about the behavior that can be expected of a person with that score. Most tests and quizzes that are written by school teachers can be considered criterion-referenced tests. In this case, the objective is simply to see whether the student has learned the material. Criterion-referenced assessment can be contrasted with norm-referenced assessment and ipsative assessment. Criterion-referenced testing was a major focus of psychometric research in the 1970s. Definition of ''criterion'' A common misunderstanding regarding the term is the meaning of ''criterion''. Many, if not most, criterion-referenced tests involve a cutscore, where the examinee passes if their score exceeds the cutscore and fails if it does not (often called a mastery test). The ''criterion'' is not the cutscore; the criterion is the domain of subject matter that the test is designed to assess. For example, the criterio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norm-referenced Assessment
A norm-referenced test (NRT) is a type of test, assessment, or evaluation which yields an estimate of the position of the tested individual in a predefined population, with respect to the trait being measured. Assigning scores on such tests may be described as relative grading, marking on a curve (BrE) or grading on a curve (AmE, CanE) (also referred to as curved grading, bell curving, or using grading curves). It is a method of assigning grades to the students in a class in such a way as to obtain or approach a pre-specified distribution of these grades having a specific mean and derivation properties, such as a normal distribution (also called Gaussian distribution). The term "curve" refers to the bell curve, the graphical representation of the probability density of the normal distribution, but this method can be used to achieve any desired distribution of the grades – for example, a uniform distribution. The estimate is derived from the analysis of test scores and possibly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cognitive Biases
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality. Although it may seem like such misperceptions would be aberrations, biases can help humans find commonalities and shortcuts to assist in the navigation of common situations in life. Some cognitive biases are presumably adaptive. Cognitive biases may lead to more effective actions in a given context. Furthermore, allowing cognitive biases enables faster decisions which can be desirable when timeliness is more valuable than accuracy, as illustrated in heuristics. Other cognitive biases are a "by-product" of human processing limitations, resulting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Overconfidence Effect
The overconfidence effect is a well-established bias in which a person's subjective ''confidence'' in his or her judgments is reliably greater than the objective ''accuracy'' of those judgments, especially when confidence is relatively high. Overconfidence is one example of a miscalibration of subjective probabilities. Throughout the research literature, overconfidence has been defined in three distinct ways: (1) ''overestimation'' of one's actual performance; (2) ''overplacement'' of one's performance relative to others; and (3) ''overprecision'' in expressing unwarranted certainty in the accuracy of one's beliefs. The most common way in which overconfidence has been studied is by asking people how confident they are of specific beliefs they hold or answers they provide. The data show that confidence systematically exceeds accuracy, implying people are more sure that they are correct than they deserve to be. If human confidence had perfect calibration, judgments with 100% confide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inter-rater Reliability
In statistics, inter-rater reliability (also called by various similar names, such as inter-rater agreement, inter-rater concordance, inter-observer reliability, inter-coder reliability, and so on) is the degree of agreement among independent observers who rate, code, or assess the same phenomenon. Assessment tools that rely on ratings must exhibit good inter-rater reliability, otherwise they are not valid tests. There are a number of statistics that can be used to determine inter-rater reliability. Different statistics are appropriate for different types of measurement. Some options are joint-probability of agreement, such as Cohen's kappa, Scott's pi and Fleiss' kappa; or inter-rater correlation, concordance correlation coefficient, intra-class correlation, and Krippendorff's alpha. Concept There are several operational definitions of "inter-rater reliability," reflecting different viewpoints about what is a reliable agreement between raters. There are three operational defin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Information Technology
Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (IT system) is generally an information system, a communications system, or, more specifically speaking, a computer system — including all hardware, software, and peripheral equipment — operated by a limited group of IT users. Although humans have been storing, retrieving, manipulating, and communicating information since the earliest writing systems were developed, the term ''information technology'' in its modern sense first appeared in a 1958 article published in the ''Harvard Business Review''; authors Harold J. Leavitt and Thomas L. Whisler commented that "the new technology does not yet have a single established name. We shall call it information technology (IT)." Their definition consists of three categories: techniques for pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multiple Choice
Multiple choice (MC), objective response or MCQ (for multiple choice question) is a form of an objective assessment in which respondents are asked to select only correct answers from the choices offered as a list. The multiple choice format is most frequently used in educational testing, in market research, and in elections, when a person chooses between multiple candidates, parties, or policies. Although E. L. Thorndike developed an early scientific approach to testing students, it was his assistant Benjamin D. Wood who developed the multiple-choice test. Multiple-choice testing increased in popularity in the mid-20th century when scanners and data-processing machines were developed to check the result. Christopher P. Sole created the first multiple-choice examination for computers on a Sharp Mz 80 computer in 1982. It was developed to aid people with dyslexia cope with agricultural subjects, as Latin plant names can be difficult to understand and write. Structure Multipl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Essay
An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal and informal: formal essays are characterized by "serious purpose, dignity, logical organization, length," whereas the informal essay is characterized by "the personal element (self-revelation, individual tastes and experiences, confidential manner), humor, graceful style, rambling structure, unconventionality or novelty of theme," etc. Essays are commonly used as literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. Almost all modern essays are written in prose, but works in verse have been dubbed essays (e.g., Alexander Pope's ''An Essay on Criticism'' and '' An Essay on Man''). While brevity usually defines an essay, voluminous works like John Locke's ''An ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
School Examinations
A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools. The names for these schools vary by country (discussed in the '' Regional terms'' section below) but generally include primary school for young children and secondary school for teenagers who have completed primary education. An institution where higher education is taught is commonly called a university college or university. In addition to these core schools, students in a given country may also attend schools before and after primary (elementary in the U.S.) and secondary (middle school in the U.S.) education. Kindergarten or preschool provide some schooling to very young children (typically ages 3–5). University, vocational school, college or seminary may be availa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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