A new entry in the testing lexicon is through-course summative assessment, a system consisting of components administered periodically during the academic year. As defined in the Race to the Top program, these assessments are intended to yield a yearly summative score for accountability purposes. They must provide for both individual and group…

Research has often found that, when high school grades and SAT scores are used to predict first-year college grade-point average (FGPA) via regression analysis, African-American and Latino students, are, on average, predicted to earn higher FGPAs than they actually do. Under various plausible models, this phenomenon can be explained in terms of…

In studies of the SAT, correlations of SAT scores, high school grades, and socioeconomic factors (SES) are usually obtained using a university as the unit of analysis. This approach obscures an important structural aspect of the data: The high school grades received by a given institution come from a large number of high schools, all of which have…

Developed an empirical Bayes enhancement to Mantel-Haenszel (MH) analysis of differential item functioning (DIF) in which it is assumed that the MH statistics are normally distributed and that the prior distribution of underlying DIF parameters is also normal. (Author/SLD)

National Assessment of Educational Progress reading data were scaled using a unidimensional item response theory model. Bock's full-information factor analysis and Rosenbaum's test of unidimensionality were applied. Conclusions about unidimensionality for balanced incomplete block spiralled data were the same as for complete data. (Author/GDC)

The Mantel-Haenszel approach for investigating differential item functioning (DIF) was applied to United States history items within the 1986 National Assessment of Educational Progress administered to 7,812 11th graders. DIF analyses were based on responses of 7,743 11th graders. Results concerning sex and racial differences and ethnicity are…

Two extensions of the Mantel Haenszel procedure that may be useful in assessing differential item functioning (DIF) are explored. Simulation results showed that, for both inferential procedures, the studied item should be included in the matching variable, as in the dichotomous case. (SLD)

In a simulation study of ability and estimation of differential item functioning (DIF) in computerized adaptive tests, Rasch-based DIF statistics were highly correlated with generating DIF, but DIF statistics tended to be slightly smaller than in the three-parameter logistic model analyses. (SLD)