Adaptive Testing
Adaptive assessmentcan be defined as any type of assessment that is tailored specifically to each examinee, based on their performance on previous items on the assessment. Most adaptive assessments are based on the theories and advances of Item Response Theory (IRT). More specifically, in IRT the examinee ability estimates, as well as item characteristics such as the item difficulty, are placed on the same continuum. This allows for the administration of items that are matched to the estimated ability level (θ), of each examinee, at each point of the assessment. Therefore, adaptive assessments allow for the administration of items that are targeted to the ability level (or trait level) of each examinee, which enables the estimation of more accurate examinee ability estimates. For example, if an examinee responds correctly to item 1, their estimated ability will increase, so the second item that will be administered will be of higher difficulty than the first item. If...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this entry
Cite this entry
Papanastasiou, E. (2014). Adaptive Assessment. In: Gunstone, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Science Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6165-0_3-4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6165-0_3-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-6165-0
eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education