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Test reliability and effective test length

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Abstract

Measures of effective test length are developed for speeded and power tests, which are independent of the number of items in the test or of the time required for administration. These measures are used in determining reliability for (1) speeded and power tests, where a separately timed short parallel form is administered in addition to the full-length test; (2) power tests, where a subset of items is imbedded within the total test, parallel to the total test; and (3) power tests, where the subset of items is correlated with the complementary parallel subset in the test.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Educational Testing Service, USA

    William H. Angoff

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  1. William H. Angoff
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Additional information

The writer gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Dr. Ledyard R Tucker in the formulation of some of the concepts presented in this paper. He wishes also to express his appreciation for the helpful comments of Dr. Harold Gulliksen and Dr. Frederic M. Lord in their review of the manuscript.

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Angoff, W.H. Test reliability and effective test length. Psychometrika 18, 1–14 (1953). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02289023

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02289023

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