Test taking strategies in computer adaptive testing that will improve your score: Fact or fiction?

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of the claim made by test review companies that spending more time and attention on the first five or ten items on a computer adaptive test will improve an examinee's final ability estimate. Study 1 examined the effects of different amounts of information about how the test works and/or how to improve your score. In this study, it was found that having information on how to perform better on an exam does result in higher scores. Study 2 was a series of simulation studies that examined the stability of a computer adaptive test and the actual theta estimate when certain test parameters were varied: item bank parameters (item pool size, discrimination parameters, and guessing parameters); examinee parameters (whether or not the examinee has an artificially boosted ability level); and testing algorithm parameters, in particular how the first items are selected. Overall, evidence was found to support this test taking strategy taught to improve test scores. Finally, these results were compared to current average GRE scores for graduate schools across the United States. It was found that this artificial boost can result in admittance when the true theta might have resulted in non-admittance.